


Lost Worlds and Dancing Blades

by StormEye7



Series: The Singer, The Hunter, The Dancer [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Game), Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Exo (Destiny) - Freeform, F/F, Fallen (Destiny) - Freeform, Fluff and Angst, Human/Exo Relationship(s), Iron Lords (Destiny) - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Night Terrors, Post-Recall, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reviews Welcome, SIVA (Destiny) - Freeform, Slow Burn, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-31 15:52:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormEye7/pseuds/StormEye7
Summary: "It doesn't matter if the system thinks with flesh or superconductor or topological braids in doped metallic hydrogen, as long as the logic is the same. And our logic is the same. Yours and mine. If I am a machine then so are you. If you are not a machine then neither am I." - Ghost Fragment: ExoAfter an ill-met encounter at an abandoned Golden Age facility, a lone Huntress finds herself stranded in a time unlike her own. In a world without Light, without The Traveller and without any means of returning home, she must struggle against friends and foes alike if she ever hopes to survive. This would be easier done than said, if not for a particular French assassin who decides to take interest in her, and the re-emergence of an old enemy...





	1. The Wolf of Mars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is the lone wolf, once cornered, who has the worst bite." – Taniks, the Scarred

**The Dust Palace, Meridian Bay, Mars [June 5th, 2738]**

Despite the Guardians' best efforts, Mars remained a desolate husk of the world that had launched humanity into the stars. The world where humanity had discovered the Traveller, a machine god of magic and technology, a being that had sparked a Golden Age of wonders.

As the dust settled, and as centuries rolled by, all that remained of mankind's presence were the corpses of once-towering skyscrapers that littered the horizon, half buried beneath the red Martian sands, their occupants long since rotted to ash. None remained to tell the tales of this place. The Collapse, an event of system-wide genocide at the hands of some ancient, unintelligible Darkness all those centuries ago had seen to  _that_.

That was not to say that, after all that time, the planet remained lifeless. Oh no, since those dark days, the red planet had become a war zone befitting of the forgotten god to which the dead world owed its name.

Whether it was the Vex, a machine race as cold and as infinite as time itself; the Cabal, an imperial military force that could destroy suns, or the occasional band of Fallen, an alien race of pirates and scavengers, there was always something on Mars that wanted something else dead.

Unfortunately for the red planet's inhabitants, there were some things in the Solar System that did not enjoy such inhospitality. These were the Guardians, or Light-bearers, depending on whom you ask. Those among the long dead, chosen to Rise again to undo the wrongs done upon their kind and strike out once more against the Dark, and do that which the Traveller no longer could, as she gave her life in the Collapse's waning moments.

At least, that is what the Guardians were supposed to be. In reality, their numbers were few, only a few thousand strong - a number too few to carry out their burden, though not for a lack of trying.

Hundreds of feet above the surface of Mars, atop the summit of a half-buried skyscraper, at the cusp of a sweeping landing pad overlooking the wretched wastes, a Guardian stood. To be more precise, a Huntress stood. On any other day, she had stood searchingly, a cannon in her hand poised to erase whatever miserable excuse that happened upon her crosshairs. Today, however, she did none of that.

She was being hunted. By the very vermin she had been tasked to exterminate, no less, an unpleasant irony. This was the last time she did the Vanguard any favours.

 _Fallen_. Even the word left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, like rotted ash, if such a thing existed.

Her stupor faltered as the Huntress spied an escape: an elevator shaft on the other side of the rooftop leading down into shadows of the facility's core. While the prospect of staying more a second longer in this Traveller-forsaken place than she had to, she'd take it over the  _Fallen_  any day, at least while her rifle lay in pieces a few floors down. The 'alien bastards' as the Huntress was so fond of calling them had ambushed her not moments ago.

The Huntress darted forward, her refuge in clear view just as a door to her right exploded. From the opening lurched a swarm of stocky, two-armed Dregs and taller, bulky Vandals alike.

She cursed, the sound muffled by her visored helm, as she ducked and slid under the ensuing firefight to the safety of decrepit shipping container, the bare pad's only respite from the hailstorm of baby-blue plasma and red-hot shrapnel. As more doors began to blast open, she protruded her head from her cover an inch, again finding the doorway to her shadowy salvation.

Lowering into a crouch, she planted one foot before the other like a sprinter at the starting block. Willing the Light into her stride, she then leapt. At a speed to rival eyelids, she wove her way beneath the gunfire, slowing only to shimmy through the narrow gap of the ancient elevator's old ajared doors as the shadows below beckoned for her.

Unfortunately, this lapse of momentum had been at her peril, as she had no sooner started her dive when a beam of deep blue, one much more potent than the rest, blazed its way to the small of her back. All elegance of her fall vanished as the impact sent her into a mad tumble. The Guardian cried out an indignant swear, her vision blurring in pain, only until the hard metal below rose to meet her head on.

* * *

**Iron Temple, Felwinter Peak, Old Russia, Earth [January 13th, 2364]**

One would have thought that the rocky bowels of a temple, carved from stone and steel, atop the snow-capped summit of a long forgotten mountain, deep within the broken remains of a dead world, would be a place of tranquillity, and consideration.

One would be wrong. In the amber light of a raging brazier, two women quarrelled in bitter tones.

The taller of two women, a tall woman clad in a flowing robe of lustrous golden cloth, stood with her arms folded across her chest, a look of complete ire staining her otherwise pretty complexion.

Her quarry was dressed almost oppositely. Decked head-to-toe in a suit of iron, leather, and fur, topped with the skinned head of a wolf that served as a hood over her visored helm, one may have mistaken her for a shield-maiden of old, ready to charge into battle at any moment.

The shorter woman shouted. "You're all mad, the lot of you!" Although her voice was higher, younger, than that of her aggressor, it rang true, regardless. "Of all people, I at least expected  _you_  to see reason, Skorri."

The robed woman, Skorri, gave an affronted look. "And what is  _that_  supposed to mean?" she snapped, patience more than running thin.

The masked woman gave a dry laugh as she spoke again. "For the last month and a half, we have done nothing but pour over every text, rumour, and ghost-story about this place..." Her voice echoed ever louder as emotion began to leak into it, "For a moment, let's say that maybe, just maybe, some of them, a fraction of them are right, how many…" she took a shaky breath through her rebreather as her voice began to break, "How many..." The woman turned away, looking sightlessly into the flames. "How many of us aren't going to walk away from it." She spoke the last part quietly, so quietly that Skorri was unsure whether she had heard it or not.

Skorri's heart shook, as all traces of anger were swept from her face. She took a hesitant step forward, before wrapping her arms around the cloaked woman in a close hug. "Oh, Fortuna..." she managed to mumble as her eyes filled with tears.

The woman in Skorri's arms turned in the embrace to look her partner in the eyes before resting her hooded head against her chest. The two women just stood there, bodies held close, as the fire beside them continued to blaze.

"I leave for the Traveller in the morning." Fortuna managed to croak as the two women pulled away. "Timur's idea," she added.

Skorri sighed. It was only natural that the old man would have something to do with this. "It'll be for the best," she whispered into her lover's ear while making a mental note to give Timur a firm kick in the rear the next time she saw him.

Fortuna said nothing, opting instead to pull herself away from the embrace, raising a hand to the side of her helmet. The front folded outwards, like a lotus coming into bloom, exposing her face. Even the waning firelight, it was more than apparent that the woman was certainly not human. Her head was composed entirely out of a gleaming, snow white metal. Her face, while not entirely dissimilar from a regular human's, it held its own distinctions. From her eyes that shone like torches, the dim blue light that shone from behind her jaw, or the small antennae that stuck out from her head like a set of ears, the Exo was certainly unique.

"I know," Fortuna replied after a while. With each syllable, the light in her jaw flashed, illuminating her partner's face for a brief moment. "At least I'll be with other… what has Radegast started calling us?" the mechanical Hunter inquired.

"Guardians," Skorri answered. "Much less poetic than 'Risen' if I'm being honest," she added with a smile. This earnt her a chuckle from the Exo.

"Well, when you get back," Fortuna walked forward, slinking her arms around the back of the taller woman's neck "We'll work on a new one."

* * *

**The Dust Palace, Meridian Bay, Mars [June 5th, 2738]**

Fortuna awoke slowly. The fall had been greater than she had anticipated; the elevator shaft stretched further down into the facility than she thought it could go. She knew the Martian sands had been enveloping the building over the course of the last few centuries, but she had no idea the extent of the damage.

She stood with intense difficulty; the spot where the Fallen had hit her had left a sore burn. She outstretched her hands, groping around in the darkness for a way out of the hole she had just landed herself. When no respite came, the woman kicked out against the wall, frustration building in her veins, sending an echoing clang up the shaft as the wall, which turned out to be a door, gave way into a dimly lit corridor.

Counting her blessings, the Huntress pressed on, determined to put as much distance between her and her aggressors, in case they came to investigate if their quarry had survived. The hallway was barren, holding nothing more than a handful of empty elevators, like the one she had found herself in prior, decorating the walls left and right, and the odd patch ceiling that had fallen through to litter the floor.

All around, the lights adorning what remained of the ceiling fluttered into life as she approached them, causing the age-old specks of dust in the air that swirled around her to light up like fireflies. The woman watched them with some interest, admiring their wispish paths and glows, and she wondered how a facility this ancient could still possess so much leftover power.

Her breath hitched. A facility like this should not, especially with a building this old. She dropped onto her stomach, eyes scanning the hallway before her, or more specifically, the thick dust that spread across the entirety of the floor space.

She found her quarry in mere moments. Footprints. Dozens of sets all leading in different directions, although more noticeably, toward the end of the corridor. Fresh, too.

Fortuna drew her knife, which had remained at her side, despite her short run in with gravity, and began making gentle strides into the blackness before her.

There were fewer lights here. While some had ceased to function on the accord of entropy, some had been deliberately smashed, causing the shadows around the former Guardian to grow to sinister proportions.

She had heard it said that the Fallen were so attuned to living in shadow to the point where they could survive even in complete darkness. She had also heard it said that the Fallen were born with an insatiable hatred towards Light in all forms, and so they avoided it wherever possible. Whatever the case, this was definitely their doing. The Huntress failed to imagine the Vex or the Cabal reduced to such petty vandalism.

The Hunter sighed deeply, the sound muffled against her helmet. She'd had enough dealings with the Fallen for one day. The wound at her spine flared in agreement. As she continued walking down the passageway, her mind began to wonder as to where about she was. She must have been in the lower levels, her fall had been more than proof, but the hallway she had been trekking must have gone on for miles.

She looked back, watching the lights behind her blink out one by one as she left their vicinity. There were no more elevators adoring the walls now, just a solid stretch of concrete that ran along either side. Even the ceiling was becoming less decorated. The odd patches of missing roof space were becoming scarcer and scarcer as the tunnel progressed. Even the lighting was running out, as more broken lights began to litter the floor.

The Huntress outstretched her arm, hand still clutching tight around her dagger. Reaching once more into one of the many corners of her mind, she called upon her Light. At once, electricity began to spark between her fingertips, the energy spreading down and along the length of the knife in her hand as it began to glow a deep blue, lightning crackling around the blade as it sent blinding light in all directions.

She felt like the whole world had suddenly been revealed to her. Every speck of dust in the air and every crack in the ancient concrete, she could see it all. Her Light reached further into the void before her than her eyes ever could.

What she saw, however, put an abrupt end to her newfound euphoria. Some few meters ahead of her, the tunnel opened out into a hollow, much larger than what she had been walking through, and what it contained sent an icy chill up the Guardian's back.

It was a Vex transfer gate, a portal through which Vex units, or anything else for that matter, could pass through to teleport to another location. A powerful piece of technology, to be sure. It stood alone in the centre of the room, disabled and silent. A particularly bulky section of cable slinked from the circular gate to connect to a large monitor that lay seemingly forgotten on the floor. As Fortuna took careful steps toward it, ancient floodlights sprang into life along the ceiling, brightening the entire room.

Breaking the spell on her blade, she subsequently sheathed it. She didn't want too much light, after all.

The monitor, like the lights, still maintained some level of power, although the screen was heavily distorted from mishandling, and she could still read some of what it said:

**[BYFROST=MIDGARD][CONTACT=[REDACTED]=VICTORIA][HEIMDALL=ACTIVE]**

She sighed. Why couldn't Golden Age encryption make sense for once? She tapped the screen with her boot, hoping the activity would breathe some function back into it. The monitor continued to flash uselessly at her. Now thoroughly agitated, Fortuna began pacing the cavern, hoping to make some sense of the madness at hand, forgetting for a moment of the threat those few floors up.

The cavern appeared to be some sort observatory. A building-sized steel door stood on one side to the portal, leading to Traveller-knows-where, while a large glass window stood on another to overlook it. The rest of the area was strangely empty, save for a second cable, much tauter than the first, which ran from the gate all the way to the far wall.

Following this, the Hunter spied a rusted power box secured to the wall, the cable plugged roughly into its front. Curious, she gripped a broken handle fastened to one of its sides and pulled. The old machine gave no way. Murmuring harsh words, she tried again. Using both hands this time, and using more than a little Light to assist her, she heaved on the ancient metal until the Guardian found herself flying backwards.

She had managed to remove the side panel, that much was clear. Unfortunately, half the power box had come off with it.

Massaging her shoulder, while simultaneously evaluating her life choices, a bright flash returned her to her senses. The gate had sparked violently to life, energy coursing off the metal frame to strike at the walls with the fury of a storm. Content with the idea of backing off, she found herself drawn towards it as if an invisible hand had seized her around the torso and was dragging her in closer.

The sensation worsened when the gate began to glow as a ring of purplish light formed in its core. Fortuna tried to run, to leap, to flee as far away from the construct as far as she could, but to no avail.

The energies became more vicious, as one particular bolt struck dangerously close to her foot. Large metal chunks were starting to disappear from the machine, fraying into the air like vapours as too much power flowed through them.

As panic began to settle in her core, she imagined herself sharing the same grisly fate. She did not want to die like this. She did not want to die in some forgotten cave or to vanish without a trace with nothing left for others to find. Her eyes darting back to the portal, she made her decision.

She let go, allowing herself to fall into the pull of the gateway as she flew toward it. She only hoped there was something else on the other side to catch her when she landed.  _If_  she landed, that is.

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076]**

The plan was going along perfectly. The lighting, the security, the expose, everything, was just so perfect! The preacher, or monk or whatever it claimed to be, was dead. No, not yet, but the time was coming close, so close, so tantalisingly close.

The monk would be dead. Any second now…any…second…now.

_Line up the shot. Pull the trigger. End that miserable machine's life like the good killer you are._

Yes, a killer, that is what she was, the greatest killer that has ever graced this Earth. No, not a  _killer_. A killer was a nothing more than a brute, with no regard for grace or rhythm. She was so much more than that. She was an artist.

An artist who brushed and wove in rivers of the deepest scarlet whose brushes were that of death. Quick, clean, perfect death.

She felt herself smiling. It was a hollow shadow of what a smile should have been, but a smile nonetheless. If she were an artist, then this would be her magnum opus, her masterpiece.

She was close...just a little longer...any second now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little fact for you: The destination tag assigned to the Dust Palace's roof is 'Overwatch'.
> 
> I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	2. Almost Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It doesn't matter if the system thinks with flesh or superconductor or topological braids in doped metallic hydrogen, as long as the logic is the same. And our logic is the same. Yours and mine. If I am a machine then so are you. If you are not a machine then neither am I. Exo minds are human. It is incontrovertible." – Unknown

**Somewhere Between Space [Somewhen Between Time]**

Thinking back, Fortuna would remember two things from her encounter with the portal. The first was the feeling as if she were ashes caught in a breeze, an almost fluttering sensation as she fell through clouds of wispy nothingness. The second thing she would remember was the pain.

Fortuna knew pain. She would say that she was as more familiar with the feeling than almost anybody else. This pain was nothing like that which she had experienced before, nothing like a wound or a broken bone or electrocution; it was something else entirely.

It was as if she had been broken apart into a million pieces, each whizzing around and away in all directions, converging and separating in the blink of an eye, leaving only pain. She could not see, she could not hear, and she could not even breathe. It was all she could discern of the infinite blackness that surrounded her.

Her mind flashed back to her decision only moments prior.

_Was it moments? How long have I been like this? How could I have been so stupid? Would disintegration have been really so bad?_

Such gloomy thoughts would have to wait as another lash of pain rocked through whatever form her mind held. She tried to move, to do something, anything, just to break the monotony of pain and darkness, but to no avail.

A deep sadness welled in her heart as the consequences of her actions washed over her. Now, her mind knew only uncertainty.

_Is this my fate? Am I to be forever lost in some dark corner of time? Am I to know only suffering for all eternity? Will I die here? No..._

Before Fortuna could come to terms with the weight of whatever destiny awaited her, the most painful bout yet tore through her. She felt all those tiny pieces of herself align into place, ready to tear apart at any moment. The Exo braced, ready for whatever pain would come next, only to find that no more came. Instead, the Exo found herself feeling the sensation of wind on her skin, and light in her optics.

The void in which she had found herself in was no longer an endless nothingness of shadow. Instead, she saw... Luna, Earth's moon, staring at her. She simply looked at it, completely bewildered. A deep numbness had formed on her back. She was lying down. Whatever she was lying  _on_  was a mystery to her, but, for some bizarre reason, it gave her a sort of comfort, the kind usually reserved for a parent, or mentor.

The Huntress stood up, massaging the knot in her back formed by the cold ground. She spun in a circle, observing her surroundings with reserved glances. Street lights. Apartment complexes.  _People_. A small laugh rose in her mechanical throat as relief washed over her. She was home. By some miracle, she had ended up somewhere in the Last City, the only safe refuge left on Earth following the collapse.

The Exo tapped a button on her left gauntlet. The Vanguard, the ruling body of Guardians of the Last City, would probably need to hear about her short escapade. A small diamond icon appeared in her vision, the words 'CAYDE-6' displayed next to it in a loud font.

"Cayde?" Fortuna spoke, "You there?" Only the buzz of static answered her. Fortuna hummed in annoyance. Probably in a meeting.

_Or passed out in the bar again._

The Huntress tapped a different button, the words 'SALADIN FORGE' appearing instead. She spoke again. "Saladin?" Nothing again.

After a few more failed calls, Fortuna gave up.

_The portal must've busted my communicator. Strange though, seems to be working fine. Unless..._

Fortuna looked directly upwards, optics scanning the night sky. Her breath stopped short in her chest. This wasn't the Last City. If it was, where was the Traveller?

Where was she?

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076] [5 minutes prior]**

This was it, the moment she had been waiting hours for. That infernal machine was speaking, blind to the danger lurking only a few rooftops away. The assassin gave a soft hum as she butted a rifle square into a guard's forehead, sending him swiftly to sleep. She was tempted to turn the rifle around and put a bullet through his unsuspecting head. She almost did, until a voice in her head extinguished such thoughts.

_No, not enough time. You have your orders._

Staying her hand, the artist raised her foot, tying a length of silky cord that ran from a gauntleted arm to a nearby chimney around her ankle. With this secure, she gracefully leapt from the rooftop, her rope keeping her in place a few windows down. Now hanging from the building by the foot, she slung her firearm to her shoulders, eyes glued down her sights as a visor slunk down from her forehead to cover them. It was then she found her quarry.

_There you are my prey..._

It (he?) stood before a stout podium addressing a crowd of adoring onlookers, both human and machine alike. The Omnic was already speaking, arms raised in a picture-perfect frame for its gleaming head, and the artist's small smile grew into a smirk on the sniper's lips as her finger brushed against the smooth trigger of her gun.

Whatever the robot was about to say was cut short by a blinding flash of lightning, which dispersed the crowd to a chorus of shrieks. For the energy had not come from the heavens, despite the cloudy night sky overhead, but had appeared instead seemingly from thin air amidst the robotic patron's audience.

The assassin shielded her eyes, her vision cut off completely as the light burned deep into her sockets, just in time to avoid another burst just moments after, which would have surely blinded her. Within seconds, the rally had dissolved into a mad frenzy to escape as more and bolts of energy crackled across the plaza, dancing across the raindrops that had begun to fall.

The energy, as quickly as it had appeared, vanished before the crowd's very eyes as if wiped away by an invisible cloth, leaving behind scorched cobblestones, the scent of ozone, and the ragged outline of a hooded figure splayed on its back, facing the sky.

It stood with difficulty, body turning to face its surroundings. It uttered a laugh, the cry echoing through the now silent city square. All around, pedestrians stood in awe of the stranger. Some, law enforcement, or security to the monk, had drawn weapons, all aimed directly at the figure, not that it would appear to matter; it, or rather  _she_ , if the tone of its voice was any indication, wasn't moving an inch, although it had started to speak.

"Cayde? You there? Saladin? Ikora? Amanda? Anyone?!" It spoke its last few words with a genuine spark of frustration that made her onlookers visibly jump.

The assassin blanched. In the confusion of the strange woman's arrival, she had forgotten all about her mission. She rappelled back up to the roof, the guards still unconscious, and scanned the area for her target, her  _masterpiece_. Nothing.

"NON!" She cried, her French tongue echoing into the night.

Her outrage was such that she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs until all of London could hear her. Her target was gone, her mission failed, and she had accomplished NOTHING. She was supposed to be The Widowmaker, the greatest assassin the world had ever seen, and she had failed what could have possibly been her greatest work yet.

Her eyes met again with the strange woman. She had taken an upright position, faceplate pointed directly upwards, completely oblivious. With a grim smile, she raised her rifle once more, barrel aimed directly at her interruption's worthless head, when the second worst thing to happen to her evening occurred.

"Wotcha lookin' at, love?"

A voice, much too chipper to belong to any sane person, rang from somewhere behind her, sending her into a state of utter panic as she spun around, rifle raised to the new annoyance.

A woman, garbed in an aged leather bomber jacket, a set of bright orange leggings matched with a set of skiing goggles sat against her eyes stood some way along the rooftop, a twin pair of pistols in her hands aimed straight at the Widowmaker's chest.

* * *

**Dust Palace Undercroft, Meridian Bay, Mars [June 5th, 2738]**

It was rare for a Fallen raiding party to stumble upon a find as grand as this. Usually, the Fallen were lucky to find anything that was functional or even intact, but this, a fully working Vex transfer gate, with human modifications to boot, it was nothing short of a treasure. It was nothing compared to the Fallen's other discovery on Mars not long ago, but it certainly had its worth.

The Captain of the group who had found it had been keen to test this worth. Leaving the gateway alone for a few minutes so that his underlings could find a suitable power source could not have been so poor a choice, surely.

Even as the small army of Vandals and Dregs opened the ancient cargo doors to re-enter the gate's chamber, the consequences of their actions were more than apparent. Something, a pesky Light-thief no doubt, had almost completely destroyed their prize. The bronze frame was in shambles, the energies reverberating off the infernal device had completely vaporized one-half of the group and the other had been sucked through to whatever unknown the portal held.

The Captain was not fond of either choice and so fought with all its might against the gateway's gravity, determined to get as far away from the wretched device as he could. This was proving difficult, as the strange gravity that had swallowed his crew was threatening to draw him in as well.

The Captain roared, digging his heels deep into the concrete as he struggled to gain a decent footing. In desperation, he drew a stubby grenade from his belt and tossed it into the abyss before him. The subsequent explosion, though petty by most standards, seemed to be enough to shatter what little remained of the alien contraption. The swirling vortex vanished, the frame was torn apart, and the Fallen leader collapsed onto his four arms.

Sparing no time for rest, he rose and began sprinting away from the broken remains, lest it somehow tries again to make his life any more difficult. A rattling sigh echoed through his rebreather, he would surely be punished for this failure. His Kell, or king, was not known to be of a forgiving nature. Still, it was better than what the gate had planned for him.

He felt a stab of pity for his crew. He only hoped the gateway took them somewhere that was at least survivable. Somehow, he doubted this.

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076]**

To say that Lena Oxton was having a strange evening would be something of an understatement. It had started off normal enough though, she'd gone for an afternoon run, come home, gave her partner a quick kiss, had a phone call with a seven-foot Silverback Gorilla, and then left for King's Row square for the pro-Omnic rally. It all seemed to be a bland, normal, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary day.

That was of course, until the moment she arrived. Even as she stood before Tekhartha Mondatta, an Omnic monk who was giving the speech to the gathered masses, something had seemed definitely off. Mondatta's security staff seemed...troubled. As if something was about to go, or already had gone, wrong.

She had taken to the rooftops at breakneck speed, determined to find the source of the commotion. She found it in seconds, a woman, clad in full suit of shining lycra hanging halfway down a hotel, an obvious sniper rifle firm in her grip. Lena was already running when she saw her. Drawing pistols from a pair of wrist guards, she was ready to charge.

When the strange lightning had arrived, and the subsequent arrival of the mysterious woman, she had, naturally, been thrown off guard, as anyone else would have been; even she found some things outlandish from time to time.

Regardless, she had continued on her mission. She very much doubted the assassin could have made herself scarce in such short a time. Luckily, she hadn't. She was standing on a rooftop overlooking the square where the mysterious stranger was busy talking to herself. Determined not to waste any more time, Lena darted to the rooftop, being as quiet as she could as she sneaked up on her quarry, pistols raised. Thankfully, the sniper seemed too interested in the woman down in the plaza that she did not notice Lena who stood only a few feet behind her.

With the cheeriest voice she could muster, Lena called out to the would-be killer.

"Wotcha lookin' at, love?"

Lena found it hard to suppress a giggle as a look of utter bewilderment spread across the assassin's face as she turned to face the Englishwoman and her... less than standard attire of goggles, bomber jacket, leggings and crocs. Lena herself was a little shocked in turn. In the dim light of the city around them, the sniper's skin took to a periwinkle blue and the red-lighted visor that covered her eyes looked like it belonged to the face of an overgrown tarantula.

The expression soon turned to rage as the killer raised her rifle to the younger woman's chest. Lena barely had time to register what was happening as she managed to leap out of the way of the flurry of bullets sent her way.

_Good job, Lena, real smooth. There goes that normal evening._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out to all them Kudos from the last chapter! Expect new chapters to be posted either weekly or fortnightly.
> 
> I own neither Destiny or Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	3. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In the years after the Collapse, the world had no Guardians. It had only Iron Lords." - Lord Saladin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING - This Chapter contains semi-graphic violence and blood. Continue at your own risk.

**The Cosmodrome, Old Russia, Earth [December 21st, 2330]**

The remains of Old Russia were always cold this time of year. Snowdrifts would pile tens of feet tall and blistering winds would howl with the force of a small aircraft. Life, at this time, was rare. Only the bravest or the stupidest of human survivors dared to venture out into the harsh cold. The scars left by the Darkness were still fresh in the minds of those who had survived the Collapse.

Whole cities sacked and burned in a matter of mere days, armies had been slaughtered in their thousands, and even now, after the horrors, those among the dead had risen from the grave to command the few survivors as Warlords. It was little wonder why this was a time that would come to be known as the Dark Age.

At times, the only sources of life in this bleak world, ironically, were the Ghosts, small autonomous drones that began to roam the system following the Collapse, the moment the Traveller died. Theirs was the charge to wander among the dead and finding those worthy of the Traveller's power, and reviving them to continue the ongoing fight against the Darkness. This was no small task. To the Ghosts on Earth, threats were seemingly omnipresent. From Fallen scavengers or Human bandits, no place was safe for these servants of the Light.

One particular drone, on a cold midwinter morning, was exercising a little more bravado than most of his peers. He had discovered an abandoned cosmodrome, one of many scattered about the planet, in search of his would-be Risen. The Ghost knew exactly who he, if he even was a 'he', was. He was of a reckless and headstrong nature, yet was patient and even caring at times, a rare trait for a Risen. The only problem was that the droid had no idea as to where his quarry resided.

He would surely be dead, killed during the Collapse most likely, and finding his corpse was proving more difficult than expected. He had a good feeling about this place, though. He wasn't sure why, he guessed he just... did.

The ruin's airfield and array station had yielded nothing but empty bones, as had the surrounding plains and caves, and the Ghost was soon giving up hope. All that was left to check was the old highway running into the facility.

_Hundreds of cars out there. Maybe He's among them?_

The highway in question was nothing more than stretch of ripped up concrete that ran off into the distance, with cars and other vehicles strewn about it, rusting away. There was no shortage of bodies here either. While some still clung onto vestiges of personal belongings, others were just naked bone gleaming in the moonlight, half buried in snow and debris.

The Ghost made an effort to visit each one. He must have scanned over a hundred of the dead in the first few minutes alone, and he was barely a few meters outside the cosmodromes' high metal walls. He looked into the distance, where the road bled into the horizon. So many dead, and  _he_ might not even be among them. This was going to take some time.

_Wait a second. What was THAT?_

A body has hunched over a short way its company, the body was not a skeleton. Rather, it was the form of an Exo, a Golden Age automaton, if the Ghost remembered correctly. Lying face down on the ground beside a rock, it was clearly dead. Its tattered grey flight suit was riddled with punctures and half of its head had been cleaved away. The Ghost scanned it, her, he corrected.

_Is it possible...there you are!_

It was his Risen, the one he had been searching for all these years. It was small wonder she had been chosen, her Light was certainly impressive, even for a Risen, as it pooled about her corpse, invisible to all but a Ghost. The Ghost aimed his singular eye to her, a blue beam shining from it, as the willed the Light of his own into the empty frame, and repairing years' worth of damage and decay in a blinding flash.

The body lurched, scrambling as if mid-fight, metal mouth working rapidly to gulp down air as the Risen's now repaired head whizzed around, eyes wide with fright. The little drone was beside her in less than a second, speaking words of comfort in an attempt to calm her down, but to no avail. The mechanical woman tried to stand, but stead slipped on a patch of ice and was sent back to the ground.

Being a little more forceful in his intentions, the Ghost spoke again. "Stop it! You'll just end up hurting yourself and I didn't bring you back just for you to get yourself killed all over again."

The woman flinched at the words. Looking the fellow robot in the eye, she replied in a small croak, as if she had forgotten how to speak. "Bring... back... what?"

Uttering a sigh, the Ghost continued, albeit in a gentler tone. "I'm a Ghost, more specifically I'm  _your_  Ghost, and you... well you've been dead a long time." He trailed off, not sure what else to say.

"Dead?" the woman asked, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

"Yes, dead," The drone replied. He continued, "I don't have time to explain everything right now, and I know that you've got no reason to trust me, but if you don't," he gave her a stern stare, "we are both going to die out here." The woman merely stared back, her metallic face unreadable. "Please," the ghost begged.

"O... K," the Exo said after a while, voice still strained, "where... going?"

Delighted at the change in attitude, the Ghost replied with, "There's a settlement not far from here. We'll be safe there until we can-" He broke off, uncertain of his next words, "Well, until we decide what to do next."

Not entirely happy about her circumstances, the Risen stood, being more careful this time about her footing. She turned to her Ghost, which was still hovering a couple feet off the ground beside her. She stayed there a moment, trying to remember something, something important. "What's... my... name?" She asked the little ball of light, her ability to speak growing stronger. Her Ghost rose so that it could look her in the eye. Another blue beam shot from it, this one aimed at her forehead.

He stayed like that for a while, and the Exo could not help but wonder as to what he was doing. After a few moments, however, he stopped. "I am afraid there's not much I pull much from your memory banks," he said glumly, "a couple decades worth of entropy would do that I'm afraid," he added. He did not think it appropriate to disclose the fact he had revived her without most of her original head.

"Oh," the Risen sighed, more than a little disappointed.

"Don't worry too much about it," the Ghost quickly assured her, "I'm sure we'll find you a new one."

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076]**

It had been one of the hairiest fights Lena had ever been in, and that was certainly a difficult feat to accomplish. The assassin was fast, almost impossibly so, and Lena was dearly regretting her decision to anger her. Lena wasn't even exactly sure what she had done to deserve it. She'd only stopped her from shooting that weird lightning lady.

 _Oh, that might have been it, actually_.

Whatever the case, the blue-skinned beauty was cutting her no slack. Their struggle had taken them to the roof of a decaying chapel, one of many that littered the district, where the two had dissolved to punches. Their ammo had run out a few rooftops ago, Lena had been trying to find a means of escape since, but the assassin had been most unwilling to let her. Thankfully, time was very much on Lena's side, in possibly the most literal sense possible.

Never again was Lena going to complain again about the bulky harness she had to wear when leaving the house. True, it was heavy, uncomfortable, an abysmal fashion statement, and if she took it off she might  _die_ , but if it meant control over her own timeline, she was more than happy to have it.

Lena aimed a kick at the woman's shins, a blow that was deftly blocked by one of the assassin's own. Taking advantage of the Englishwoman's off-balanced stature, the killer landed a well-placed foot in the glowing light at her chest, sending her sprawling backwards and creating a sizable dent in the contraption on her torso. She felt her back collide against a crumbling gargoyle, her knees failing and sparks flashing into her eyes, as the killer rushed forward, gloved hand poised to smash between the smaller girl's eyes. Lena ducked, just in time as the assassin sent a crushing blow to the statue's head, sending hunks of stone and grit flying. Darting towards her once again, oblivious to the blood dripping from her fist, she made a desperate lunge at the brunette's throat, quicker than Lena could will herself away.

Raising her off the ground with more strength than her otherwise lithe frame would betray, she slammed her down to the hard stone roof, rending her helpless as her grip tightened. Dazed, dizzy, and running dangerously low on air, the helpless girl groped at the blue woman's face, trying to shove her off. The assassin did not seem to like that as she raised her free hand and brought it down on her charge's face, bloodying her nose, just as a burst of white light shot across the blackened sky. The assassin uttered a grunt of pain at the flash, grip loosening as she shook her head blindly.

Taking advantage of the blue woman's temporary lack of vision, Lena turned the tables, so to speak, as she grabbed two fistfuls of Lycra and brought her clattering down to the ground with her. Straddling her torso, Lena made ready to plant a hit against the assassin's jaw, just as the spider-esque visor that had been covering her face the entire time flew up to her forehead, revealing an uncharacteristically soft face and the most stunning pair of eyes that Lena had have seen.

They were yellow, not like a soft dandelion yellow, but a hard, cold gold, that almost familiar to the perky Brit as if she had seen them before. Lena audibly gasped. She  _had_  seen them before. Although the last time she had seen them, it had been without the periwinkle skin tone and the murderous expression.

Lena opened her mouth as the assassin beneath her blinked away blindness. "Am...Amélie?" she asked, in a soft whisper.

The blue woman's eyes shot open, her expression one of confusion, then realisation, then once more back to anger. The visor slid back down into place as Amélie Lacroix slid from Lena's grasp, swinging a punch into her jaw for good measure as she rolled a few feet to her left and off the hard stone rooftop.

Before Lena could comprehend what was happening, she was gone. She rose to her feet, moving to the roof's edge with tears in her eyes and not just from the pain coursing through her mouth. She sank to her knees, sorrow seizing a firm hold in her chest as she began to cry, full force.

 _Amé_...

Her lament was interrupted as the sounds of screams and gunfire shot through her ears. Startled, Lena looked around, searching for the cause, confident she knew the one responsible. She turned and leapt from the chapel roof. In a rush of air and a flash of soft blue light, she was on the ground and running towards the distant sounds. In another flash, she was once again at the square where Mondatta had been giving his speech.

What she saw next was the last thing she had been expecting, and the oddest sight she had seen all evening.

* * *

Fortuna was lost, in every sense of the word. Where she was, or even  _when_  she was proving a most difficult question to answer.

She was on Earth, that much was clear, but due to the distinct lack of a giant magic space orb floating in the sky above her, this probably wasn't the Last City. Coupled with the fact that, as far as she knew, no other settlements like this actually  _existed_ on the planet, 'lost' was soon becoming an improper term for the situation.

There were some small towns out in the wilderness for sure, Fortuna had visited a few when she used to go out hunting, but they nothing like...  _this_. They were simple places, quaint even. This was nothing short of a city, and there were no more cities. The Darkness had seen to that.

All these dilemmas were giving the Exo a headache. Long periods of thought usually did.

A bright light broke through the Guardian's wonderings. To her left, a storm of disjointed lightning had broken out. The civilians around her were shielding their eyes at the blinding energies and were backing away, some crying out in fear. Fortuna did none of those things, instead opting to draw her knife once more from her belt, gripping it in a tight backhanded grip.

She recognised the lights in less than a second. Vex transmissions. The same kind that always heralded a swarm of brass frames, red eyes, and a rough fight. Fortuna prepared herself, planting one foot in front of the other, and ready to dart towards her soon-to-be foes.

The lightning faded, but instead of revealing a swamp of angry Vex, as Fortuna had been expecting, a party of Fallen, prone on the ground.

The Guardian was a taken aback. What were the Fallen doing in the Vex transport system? Her migraine flared again.

_Right. Fight first, questions second._

There was something odd about this particular batch of Fallen through. They were much more... mechanical than the other members of their kind that the Guardian had encountered. Sporting mismatched sets of jet-black armour and thick red wiring that hung haphazardly about disfigured limbs, they looked less like a living being, and more like legged bundles of disused scrap.

The Hunter took tentative steps towards them, knife held out in front of her, as the party remained unmoving. Standing one of them, she gave it a hard kick, as a blast a purple energy hit her straight in the midriff.

One of the beasts was evidently still alive and had raised its gun to her as she had drawn near. Fortuna was thrown off her feet as the Fallen picked itself up and the surrounding crowd screamed. The shot had scorched away at some of the soft green leather at her stomach and leaving what remained with purplish burns.

Void Light. Fortuna hated Void Light.

Ignoring the searing pain in her gut, the Exo jumped to her feet, in just enough time to dodge a second blast. As the Fallen readied its cannon propped against its shoulders for another shot, Fortuna threw her knife. It hit the alien in the throat, its cannon slipping from its grasp as it staggered backwards, bellowing a roar in the process.

Dissatisfied that the wound had not been as fatal as had been intended, the Guardian ran at the creature, landing a punch on its heavy rebreather while pulling her blade free from its neck, but not before the alien attempted one last desperate swipe at the Hunter, hurling her backwards with the might greater than any human's.

The Guardian's back collided with a shop window, the shattering glass digging into her armour and cape. The Fallen moved towards her, one of its upper arms clutching at its throat, while another two reached for a heavy set of swords hooked to its side. It seemed as though a nerve had been struck.

Body too weak to move, Fortuna had barely the strength to clamber from the broken frame and slump down into a kneel. While her body was sluggish and slow, her mind raced, looking for a chance, an escape. A boom of thunder overhead rocked the sky, as the Guardian's thoughts took the shape of a lifetime-old memory.

_Deep breath. Exhale. Faintest breeze. In, out. A spark on the wind. Inhale. Hold it._

The Guardian took a deep breath. She held it as the Vandal drew nearer.

_The air inside you is still. Quiet. A positive charge. A cloudless sky._

She looked up, watching as white lightning illuminated the dark clouds. The Fallen was close now, approaching fast.

_Now exhale all at once - aaaaah! A peal of thunder. Electric potential. A charge in the air._

Fortuna let the breath go. Feeling the force of the air through her lipless mouth, feeling the soft tingle in her chest as it left.

_Breathe in deep. Ozone burns your lungs. Hold it. With your next exhale comes the lightning. Hold it. Hold it._

She lowered her gaze to the approaching beast. She felt the air around her go soft, the wind become stronger, and the thunder growing from within. She felt her legs leave the ground, the air moving not of its own accord, but of hers. The beast stopped. Looking up in horror, it saw the crackle of electricity about her knuckles. The Risen's mind was no longer focused on her breath or her lungs, but it was in the sky, in the clouds, in the flashes of light burning above her. She opened her arms, welcoming the falling rain like an old friend.

_Now!_

Fortuna gasped as a bolt of lightning struck her from above. Her body sang with electricity, the blue energy chaining between her fingers, as she lowered her hands to the Fallen before her, still held aloof on unseen winds. Lightning shot from her hands to connect with her foes helpless form, its flesh and mechanics vanishing in an instant, as electricity chained between its limbs, between its cells, between its very soul.

The lightning died. Fortuna felt solid ground again. She tried to stand once more, even more exhausted than before.

Fortuna turned to face the rest of the beast's party. Thankfully, none of them had moved an inch since they had appeared. The Exo figured their trip through time must have been too much for them. She almost felt pity. She looked down at herself and saw the copious amount of purple-red blood that now stained her. Failing miserably at keeping her stomach in check, Fortuna almost collapsed as the ache in her belly built to a point as she frantically opened the helm's front, just in time for a foul-smelling orange slime that erupted from her mouth and onto the footpath.

Fortuna caught sight of a red beam pointed directly at her hand. She looked up, optics shining through the dim glow of streetlights. A small group of people had drawn weapons. Out of instinct, the Exo tensed, in case any of them followed through with the unspoken threat their weapons posed. A swift breeze caught her face, as a bright blue light filled her eyes. A fraction of a second later, a woman was standing before her. She was short, dressed in a bloodstained bomber jacket, and had her arms hugged around the Guardian's torso.

Before the Exo could utter a word, the light flashed again, and Fortuna had the horrible feeling of being dragged forwards at a break-neck speed. The grip on her vanished, the movement stopped, and Fortuna flumped onto her front.

"Sorry 'bout this, love," spoke a chirpy voice from somewhere beside her, "Plods 'round here aren't too fond of... well, someone like you". The Guardian looked up. The strange woman from a moment ago was holding her by the shoulders, wearing an expression of utmost sympathy as the Exo raised her head to meet her gaze. Before she could say anything in reply, the horrid sensation perked up again, and the Huntress' vision darkened into nothingness.

* * *

**Felwinter Peak, Old Russia, Earth [December 21st, 2330]**

The trek from the highway to the distant mountainsides had been difficult, to say the least. A flurry had begun to fall following the Risen's rebirth and it had now grown to become a blizzard. Walking was becoming a difficult task as the Exo struggled to fight against the harsh winds and biting cold. The woman may have been composed mostly out of metal, but that did not mean she did not feel pain.

"How far?" the Risen asked her companion through a thick woollen mask, one that her Ghost had managed to fabricate for her. Granted, the material was mostly 'recycled' from vehicular debris, but in these conditions, she was thankful for it. The weather was steadily becoming worse, and the night was swiftly approaching. Even Ghost was struggling in the poor conditions, mainly due to him being barely the size of a fist.

"Won't be too long, now," the Ghost responded, "there ought to be a gondola around here somewhere. It'll take us up to the summit." Their trip had taken up halfway up a crumbling mountain, loose rocks and half-filled footprints being the only evidence of her journey to civilisation. The rocky slopes were little protection against the wind, and more than once the woman imagined herself careering down to another death.

"Here we are!" the drone proclaimed merrily, as the Exo clambered over a small ridge to look upon the shell of a rusted ruin of a building. The two approached, Ghost leading the way as he looked for a usable carriage, and his Risen hanging back, thoroughly worn out from the climb.

"Alright, we're in business," the Ghost said, as he emerged from within the wreck, "I just need to-" the drone paused, looking past the Risen's shoulder as a voice called out from somewhere behind her.

"Now look at what we got here." The Exo turned to look at the stubbed barrel of a shotgun, poised inches away from her. Its owner was a tall, lean character, garbed in tattered old rags, face hidden by a helmet. "You one of them Warlords, aren't you," the bandit continued.

Ghost had approached the pair. "W-we don't mean any trouble," he stuttered, alarmed at the weapon aimed at his Risen's face, "we're... just passing through."

A hint of mirth slipped into the stranger's voice as it spoke once more, "No. You ain't." The weapon flashed, spraying white-hot gunpowder onto the woman's front as buckshot ripped through her chest, sending her down into the freezing snow.

Her Ghost shouted "NO!" as a second blast rang through the Exo's brain, silencing him short. The Risen had barely the strength to keep her optics open as the stranger aimed their weapon down at her again. The next thing she knew was a splash of something red on her face as a piercing boom rocked the mountaintop, followed the clattering of metal. That, and a soft, almost melodic voice, echoing around her.

"Perun! Get over here, give me some help me with this!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter this time. From here on out, chapters will be written longer, and very much darker. Any questions or critiques, feel free to leave a comment.
> 
> What you guys thinking of the new Iron Banner?
> 
> I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	4. New Allies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What is a Hunter's least favourite place to go? Answer: To sleep." - A Warlock Riddle

**Oxton Residence, London, United Kingdom [April 3rd, 2076]**

To Lena's dismay, the act of half carrying, half dragging the Omnic woman across the rooftops of London, while trying not to get spotted by a curious bystander had proven a more difficult task than the chirpy Brit had expected. She had all but collapsed as she turned the key to her city flat, after more than a mile of restrained parkour.

The door swung open, and the robot and the Englishwoman came crashing to the floor in a heap. "That you, Lena?" said a voice from inside. A tall redheaded woman came into view, looking concerned at the sudden racket.

"Evening, Emily," Lena managed as she tried to stand, chest heaving. Her Omnic companion uttered a deep grumbling sound, mouth-lights pulsing as she continued to sleep. Emily was beside her girlfriend in an instant, helping her onto her feet so that she could deposit her onto the living room couch, before helping their 'houseguest' into an armchair, pillows sagging under the weight.

The room lapsed into an awkward silence, punctuated only by the soft snoozing robots snores and the hum the contraption at Lena's chest. Emily sunk onto the cushions beside her partner, out of breath from heaving the robot the short distance. Lena giggled. "Think that was hard, try haulin' 'er 'cross half a London at this time o' night," she jested.

Emily fought the urge to smile. Fixing the smaller Brit instead with a stern look, she said, "You have a helluva lot of explainin' to do, young lady."

Before Lena could reply, a roaring tone echoed through the small apartment, startling the two Englishwomen. Lena's phone had gone off. Fishing it quickly from her jacket pocket she pressed it to her ear, stopping the thunder of 'God Save the King' before it could wake their guest.

"Lena?" asked a deep voice over the line, reviving Lena's grin.

"Winston!" she greeted, she knew the sound her favourite sentient gorilla in a heartbeat, "Hey big guy, what... uh... what ya callin' at this time of night for?"

"It's all over the news, Lena," came the flat reply. Emily walked over to the television in the corner of the room, grabbing the remote and turning it on. A suited man came into view, rain falling around him as he spoke to them.

_-took place almost an hour ago. The armed assailant was said to have, quote, appeared from nothingness, talking to itself and perusing the square. The very same square in fact, in which the Shambali representative, Tekhartha Mondatta, was giving his speech just moments prior..._

"Where are you, Lena?" Winston asked from the phone still poised at her ear.

"Uh... me flat?" The Brit answered tentatively.

"Is  _she_ with you?"

Lena sighed. "Yep."

A moment of silence followed the reply, as the news reporter continued to speak.

_-authorities have placed the surrounding areas on high alert, the kind not seen since the Null Sector uprising, all those years ago. Citizens are advised to remain in their homes until-_

"A woman appears out of thin air," Winston said again, Lena feeling every ounce of disapproval aimed her way, "she then starts a fight with a six-limbed... thing, which also appeared from thin air, may I add. For some reason, she then begins  _controlling_   _lightning_. And your first instinct... is to take her home with you."

Lena's words fell from her mouth before she could stop them, tears threatening to spill. "I know, I know! Shouldn't have gotten involved, but ya gotta understand! Coppers in this part, they ain't too liking to the Omnics round 'ere, you don't know what woulda happened!" she  _was_ crying at this point.

 _It was a stupid call. Stupid, stupid,_ stu _-_

"Good job." Came the soft reply, followed by a burst of laughter.

"I know that- wait, what?!"

"Good job!" Winston repeated, "Who knows what the authorities would have done. Good thinking, getting her out of harm's way."

The knot that had been forming in Lena's gut uncoiled in relief. Phone still in hand, she gave her partner a quick thumbs up, before vacating to kitchen portion of the flat, determined for a cup of much-needed tea. "Why you...don't do that to me, mate!" she told her friend, spooning out sugar, "You tryin' to gimme a heart-attack or something?"

"You were the one who said that I needed to grow a sense of humour."

"That wasn't what I mean-"

A loud shattering interrupted the call, followed by Emily's scream from the other room. Drawing her guns once again from her bracers, Lena darted back into the living room. The floor was littered with shards of glass, the stranger was missing from the armchair, and a large, person-sized hole had appeared in their balcony door. Putting the pieces together, figuratively, Lena stepped outside, avoiding glass where she could.

The hooded woman was nowhere to be seen.

"What was that?" came Winston's voice, still on the other side of the phone.

"Gonna have to call you back, love," Lena said, turning the device off. Her night just became a hell of a lot more complicated.

* * *

**Talon Base, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, [April 4th, 2076]**

By the time Widowmaker's transport had found its way back to base in the early hours of the next morning, she had worked herself into a bitter fury. Everything had been perfect, and yet it had all gone so terribly wrong, so quickly.

The assassin spent most of the next few hours brooding in a dark corner of her less-than-homely living quarters, vying to befall the next person who wronged her with an untimely demise. Her rifle lay in a multitude of pieces scattered across the cold steel floor, the assassin had smashed it against the wall in a fit of rage upon entering. Widowmaker had never felt this way before in her life, never felt such anger and unbridled hate. She normally felt distant, disconnected, from the outside world, caring not for the meagre and minor nuisances of life. She felt never felt so much raw emotion at once, save for after a memorable kill.

This was supposed to have been the proudest moment of her life, and it had all gone to rot, all because of that...  _thing_. Had it not appeared she  _knew_  that she would not have failed. The monk would now be dead, that meddling  _girl_  would not have stopped her, and she, the Widowmaker, would never have felt so undeniably  _alive_. At least her lattermost goal had been achieved; at least she was feeling  _something_ , even if she had to hear  _that name_ in order to feel it.

Her superior's would surely punish her for this. Her debriefing had disclosed the means through which she had failed; the Frenchwoman would not have been surprised if the whole world knew by now. A four-armed monster appearing out of nowhere and doing battle with a woman who could control lightning?! Tonight's happenings were certainly not something one could simply forget. Would she somehow be made accountable? Perhaps. Talon was not an organisation known for its forgiving nature. Would she have to go through another memory wipe? She dearly hoped so. She was not enjoying her newfound anger, and she would sooner be rid of it.

She let go of the breath she didn't know she was holding. Removing the visor from her face, she placed it as gently as she could manage onto the arm of the dusty chair in which she settled. Rubbing circles around her temples, she tried to soothe her forming headache. The next few hours would be difficult, so she might as well get some rest. Moving to her featureless bed, still dressed in her combat outfit, she lay down, and after a crude attempt at a few hours' sleep, the assassin awoke groggy, opening her eyes for barely more than a second as a soft Latina accent made itself known from a shadowy corner.

"Rough night  _araña_?"

Widowmaker recognised the voice immediately. "What do you want, Sombra?" she murmured, not even bothering to stir. Her 'colleague' had an unfortunate habit of appearing where she wasn't needed at the most inopportune of times.

"Aw, don't be like that. Here I was thinking we were  _friends_?" The owner of the voice stepped into view, bright purple trench coat and garish makeup lighting up the small room like a punked-up Christmas tree, arms crossed behind her back in an attempt at a dignified pose, one that she was failing quite miserably.

"Then you are sorely mistaken," the blue killer retorted, sitting up, a touch of venom seeping into her words. She had neither the time nor the patience to be dealing with Sombra's games right now.

Sombra pouted like a bratty child, eyes travelling along the floor at the assorted pieces of sniper-rifle. "What's the matter Widow _?_ " she cooed at the seated assassin, "Hot date not show up?"

Widow scoffed and turned away, raising her hand to block the woman from view; the harsh lights emanating from her were becoming too difficult to look at in the dim light. "That is none of your business," she stated bitterly.

She earnt a chuckle from the Latina woman. "Everything is my business,  _chérie_ ," the Hispanic woman replied, butchering an attempt at a French accent. Opening her arms, she revealed a curled up newspaper tucked neatly in her grip. She offered it to the seated assassin, who took it in a grudging manner.

Most of the front page was devoted to a large photograph depicting the events of the night prior. The armoured woman was hovering in the air, bolts of energy shooting in all directions, frozen in time. The words:  **ALIENS INTERRUPT PEACE RALLY** were printed boldly underneath. Sombra spoke again, this time dropping the childish demeanour to take a more serious tone. "Talon wants me in London to gather intel," she lowered her gaze to meet the Frenchwoman's eyes, "make some sense for them."

Her Hispanic associate stood straighter, ready to leave, as Widow continued to read the article, intrigued as to what had actually happened all those hours ago. "A word of advice,  _Amélie_ ," she said silkily, as the Widowmaker jumped to her feet.

Grabbing Sombra by the front of her coat, she slammed her into the wall, golden eyes meeting purple as her rage reignited. "Don't you  _dare_  use that name," she spat into the Latina's face.

Sombra gave a mischievous giggle, and a waggle of her fingers, before, in a flash of purple light, she vanished, making the Widowmaker's blood run just a little bit colder.

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 9th, 2076]**

Fortuna had tried to keep a low profile over the last few days, spending most of her time on the rooftops, gathering information about where on Earth she was. As it turned out, she was in a city called London, a city that, in the history she remembered, had been burned to the ground by Fallen following the Collapse. A fellow Exo of the Last City had recalled the events to her, once. The tale had chilled the Guardian to the metaphorical bone.

It was an odd place, London, not too dissimilar to The City, with busy shops and bustling crowds. What it  _did_  lack, however, was the Traveller, and Fortuna was beginning to understand why. The year was twenty-seventy-six, almost seven centuries before the time that she knew, and over sixty years since the Traveller had revealed itself to humanity. Unless there was a moon-sized-magic-space god-machine floating around the system somewhere that nobody knew about, something was  _off_  about this time.

Had the Exo landed herself in an alternate timeline? One without the Traveller, The Light, The Darkness, The Collapse and The Last City? Was the state of this world that which her own would have evolved into, had it not been for The Light? If that were so, why was the Hunter still feeling the Traveller's influence? Was she somehow communing with it, even through the fabric of space-time?

Fortuna's headache had yet to die down. She had too many thoughts, too many questions and far too few answers, but at least she had a chance to do what a Huntress did best. Study.

The robots she seen roaming the town were called 'Omnics', a breed of artificial intelligence. Fortuna had yet to learn of their origin, but she had taken an immediate disliking to them. She had suffered too many times at the hands of an A.I. to trust one on a whim. They possessed a vague resemblance to Frames, a make of service droid The City used for labour. Clunky, stupid things, in Fortuna's opinion, but she guessed they had their uses.

_Target practice, for one._

A sort of constant between the residents of this world and the Exo's was an overabundance of drinking-places. Fortuna found it rather amusing. As one of the Traveller's chosen, Fortuna never truly had a need for sustenance. The Light was all that she required, it fuelled her otherwise needing systems, allowing her to go days at a time without food, granted she did not over-exhaust her reserves, that is, and it did make for a rather boring existence at times.

The Exo considered visiting such an establishment. Almost a week of no food and no sleep was beginning to take its toll on her. It wouldn't be  _that_ difficult to acquire some local currency, and she  _somewhat_ resembled an 'Omnic'. Plus, alcohol might just be the thing to drown out her migraine. Spying a semi-reputable bar from her perch atop a church, the Guardian tapped a button on her gauntlet, one much heftier than the others. Her suit dissolved into the air, leaving behind a forest green tunic, adorned with a matching set of pants, boots and hood.

Tucking her glove under her sleeve, and acting as naturally as she could with her hundred foot drop to the ground, she began making her to her destination, casually picking a few pockets along the way. Now with a healthy selection of assorted coins in her hand, she entered the pub, but the Exo couldn't help but feel a little out of place. It was rare that she found herself within the Last City's walls, and there was little which she remembered of her life before her untimely first death.

The place was larger than it had looked from the outside world. Most of the far wall was devoted to a wide, sweeping bar, while clusters of tables and chairs littered the floor-space. Fortuna walked over to where an Omnic in a striped suit was serving drinks. It seemed a little confused at her order, no doubt wondering why an Omnic would order a large brandy, but he accepted 'her' money nonetheless. Finding a table in the corner of the room, Fortuna made ready to gather her thoughts once more, when a familiar voice shot through her auditory sensors.

"You really shouldn't steal, love."

Fortuna turned in her seat, coming face to face once again to the chirpy young woman who had 'saved' her a week prior, clutching a pint of a murky black liquid.

"Not like I had a choice," was the Exo's quiet reply. "You been looking for me?" she asked.

The shorter woman shrugged. "Not really, gave up after the first day." She pulled up the seat beside the Guardian without invitation, setting her glass down as she sat. "Lucky you're 'ere, actually. Me and Ems were out shoppin', and you're hardly a forgettable face, love." She looked over her shoulder. The Exo followed her gaze. A familiar redheaded woman was stood at the bar. She gave the two a wave. Lena turned back to the robot, aiming a point at her robe, "And you can't expect to blend in like  _that_."

The Exo chuckled, mouth lights twinkling. She turned to her newfound drinking buddy. Extending her hand she said, "Fortuna."

The woman looked puzzled. "What do you... oooh." she clutched the Exo's hand with her own. "Call me..." she hesitated with her next few words, "Tracer."

Raising her glass to the break in her lower faceplate, the Guardian tipped the amber liquid into her Exo-equivalent of a mouth. "Okay then,  _Tracer_. Fire away," she said as she set her drink back down.

At Tracer's confused expression, Fortuna spoke again. "You have questions. Ask them."

The Englishwoman looked blankly at her, forming her words clumsily. "What are you?" she asked, in a tone full of wonder.

"That... might take a while to explain," Fortuna answered hesitantly. The Exo pulled a face, or at least her approximation of one, faceplates contorting uncomfortably. She scanned her optics over the girl for a moment, sizing her up for the information that was to come.

With a cocky smile, the younger woman said, "Try me,  _Fortuna_ ," as she snatched the Exo's drink away, before taking a sip, ignoring her full pint beside her.

"Alright," the Guardian sighed, "but please, bear with me a moment. As I said, this may take a while." She drew a deep breath into her metal core, folding her hands on the table in front of her. "My name is Lady Fortuna of the Lords of Iron. Over seven hundred years ago, humanity discovered a celestial entity on Mars. We called it the Traveller, and it's arrival changed us forever."

* * *

**The Traveller, Earth** **[January 13th, 2359]**

There was an odd majesty about The Traveller. Even now, dead, slumbering, it possessed an unmistakable gravity. As for the small village that grown beneath it, the effect was less so. Clusters of tents and cooking fires made up the majority of the encampment, while a few crudely-made huts leant themselves to the centre. It was unknown how many people made this place their new home, but one thing was for certain, it was the only place in the whole system that was even remotely safe for the remains of mankind.

Between an ambush of Fallen and meter-high snow, it had taken a few days' journey for Fortuna to make her way there from Felwinter Peak. She had tagged along with a band of refugees, some human, some... not so human, but all hoping for a life beneath the broken god. With the Exo's help, they had made it in one piece, more or less.

She made her way to the middle of the camp, after saying her farewells her the group. Timur had told her of a man the denizens took to calling 'The Speaker', a mysterious figure who claimed to speak for the Traveller, and who had taken charge of this sliver of humanity. She was almost an hour into her searchings when a loud ruckus drew her attention. Two men, one dressed all in black, another in shades of red and white, were brawling in the dirt.

Fortuna stepped towards them, drawing a cannon from her hip and firing it into the air with a deafening bang. The fighters stopped to look at her in fear as the shot echoed through the sky. A few bystanders screamed, some reaching for weapons out of instinct.

"Listen to me, both of you!" the Risen shouted at them, holstering her still smoking gun. "It's bad enough there are Guardians out there," she gestured out into the untamed wilds beyond the camp, "fighting night and day to keep you lot safe, just so you can fight amongst yourselves." She turned her back on them, anger coursing through her systems. She walked away, determined to find somewhere quieter, her mood now thoroughly soured.

Her wanderings took her to a secluded bonfire, where a band of Hunters were skinning the morning's catch. Fortuna held her gloved hands over the flames, feeling the warmth of the fire seep through them, wondering how her Love was doing. Their goodbyes had been... sorrowful. Skorri had burst into tears upon seeing the Exo leave, and Fortuna was beginning to regret her decision.

_No. Radegast would never have allowed me to come with them. Probably thinks I'm made of glass or something._

The injustice of her situation made her want to scream. What was the point of it all? How many of the Iron Lords were going to die their final deaths on their crusade, just so people here could just fight one another?

A soft voice interrupted her brooding. "Excuse me?" The Exo turned, finding herself looking at the hulking form of a Titan. His face was covered by a horned helmet, one half of it was painted in a bright orange, the other side a soft white.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice a little more aggressive than she intended.

The Titan considered her a second, before asking, "What are 'Guardians'?" His voice seemed disconnected from him, somehow, too youthful, too cheerful, for a man of his size.

It took a while for Fortuna to understand the question. She straightened up, looking the man in the faceplate, "Their us," she said, "because it's... what we do. We... guard. We..." Fortuna shook her head, her words proving difficult to form, "We protect people."

"Guardian..." the man repeated as if tasting the word. "Guardian," he uttered a burst of booming laughter, the sound startling the nearby Hunters, "I like it." He declared as he turned, summoning his Ghost to his palm as the two began to chatter away as he strolled elsewhere.

Fortuna faced the fire once more. If her metal face had allowed it, the sight would have brought her a small smile. Her mind was not entirely at ease, but the encounter had helped, somewhat. She only hoped Skorri was alright. If only half the things she had heard about this 'SIVA' were true, well... there was a reason Fortuna had come here, and not gone with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any questions or problems, please, leave a comment, I'll be sure to reply.
> 
> As always, I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	5. Overwatch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now here's the real question. Why are Exo minds human? What's the design imperative? Why does a war machine - yes, absolutely, I am a war machine, built by human hands; and you are a survival machine built by the engine of evolution. Don't interrupt me." – Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING - This Chapter contains semi-graphic violence and blood, as well as mild lemons. Continue at your own risk.

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 9th, 2076]**

Lena liked to believe she lived a life of  _oddities_. Ever since her accident years ago, when Overwatch still stood, her life took a strange and not-so-exciting turn. As if falling through time thanks to an experimental, time-travelling jet plane, could be considered 'exiting'. Her harness? It was the only thing keeping her solid, lest she falls once more into the ether of time and space.

In that time, she saw things that, to this day, still haunted her. Time seemed to blend before her, casting visions of past, present, and future. She even saw things that, upon being rescued from the nightmare, she learnt to have never happened at all. All this, coupled with the fact that her best friend was a gorilla led to Lena being rather... open-minded when it came to information.

When Fortuna began her story of the Light and the Traveller, this open-mindedness was pushed to its limits. The tale was unbelievable, in the most literal sense possible. Aliens, space magic, a time hundreds of years ahead of her own, Lena hadn't believed a word. It wasn't until the story evolved into something greater, the woman's grim recollections of the centuries she had witnessed and the ghost stories of humanities fall, that the Brit's doubt began to die down.

Fortuna told Lena that her kind was called 'Exos', self-aware war machines built during the Golden Age for a struggle long lost to memory. They were beings so advanced that even  _they_  did not truly understand their own inner functions.

In turn, Lena told the Guardian about the Omnics, a subject the Exo was most curious about. She spoke of the struggle, thirty years ago, when defunct 'Omniums', self-aware robotics factories, went rogue against their human creators and began attacking cities across the globe. The robots created by these Omniums were called 'Omnics'. Eventually, the Omnics were defeated by an organisation named Overwatch, of which Lena was a member, and the Omnics began to integrate themselves into human society. Granted, they did so with much difficulty.

Fortuna scoffed when she heard this. "Who in their right mind decided to create a self-aware machine?" she asked the Brit.

Lena was both confused and deeply offended. Sure, she had spent a good portion of her life in fear of the rogue robots, but things were  _changing_. " _You're_ a machine though!" Lena said in an angry whisper, so as to not draw attention from the bar's other occupants.

The Exo's optics became distant as she drained the rest of her glass. "Doesn't mean I was born this way," she murmured into her drink. Lena tried to press the subject, but Fortuna refused to say any more on it.

Fortuna ended her tale quickly, no doubt tired of talking, as she told Lena of Mars, and the gateway to this world she had fallen through.

"So… you were on Mars, you found this... portal... thing, and then you just… what? Popped 'ere?"

"Basically."

"Righty..." Lena sighed as she looked out the window beside their table. It had been coming up to midday when she and Emily entered the place, and now the sky was beginning to turn crimson. "I take it you don't... uh... have anywhere to stay the night then, love?" she said, changing the subject to lighten the mood.

The Omnic, Exo, Lena corrected, shook her head, betraying a hint of surprise in the way her faceplates shifted. "No… I Guess I don't. But, ah, I... don't  _really_  need to sleep, though," she answered awkwardly.

The Englishwoman turned back to the window. If, and it was a big  _if_ , what this woman had told her was true, she had no home, no family, literally nothing in this world to call her own. If she was lying, or if her brain was damaged to the point where she  _thought_  she was telling the truth, there was no way Lena could allow her to leave this pub. Unless...

"Why don't you come back with me then," Lena said, as the glowing eyes of the Exo shot up to meet her own, the faint blue light illuminating the Brit's face. "I mean, even if you ain't sleeping, you'll have a roof over your 'ead," she continued, smoothing her finger over the rim of her steadily disappearing pint.

The Exo looked down at the empty glass in her hands, before looking out the window, herself, up to the darkening skies overhead. Lena could virtually see the small cogs turning in her head over the invitation. The robotic woman sighed, the air leaving her maw sounding less like a breath, and more like wind through a bad radio.

"Don't think I have a choice," she said in a quiet voice, not in a whisper though, just… quietly. She turned back to the Brit beside her. "Your place, I take it?"

Lena nodded, thrilled at the Exo's decision. Standing, Fortuna straightened her crumpled tunic, before raising her hood to cover her face, so that all Lena could see were a set of pale blue lights, and giving her the appearance of a large green shadow.

Lena followed suit, grabbing her harness from under the table and fixing it to her chest. Performing any other action than running with the thing was a chore unto itself, so she kept it off whenever she could. To say nothing of the fashion statement it promoted…

The two made their way outside, the spring air heavy with the smell of ozone and greasy fast food. Under her cowl, Fortuna uttered a hoarse coughing sound.  _Exo's can smell, apparently_. Lena wondered what else an Exo could do-

_Nope, nope! Not gonna think about that! Not even remotely!_

The robot's voice brought the brunette's head out of the gutter it had found itself in. "Which way?" she asked, her tone thick with disgust.

"You should know," Lena replied, giving the Exo a dirty look, "you're the one who jumped out my bloody window."

Fortuna chuckled, dropping her stoic demeanour, if only for a second. "Not my fault, someone put a window in my way."

"Ha-ha, very funny," Lena said before silence fell between the two.

_She does have a nice arse though- No! Bad Lena!_

* * *

The trip back to the Tracer's apartment was much more pleasant to travel on foot than it was to be dragged over rooftops, even if the local sights were not very welcoming. London might have been similar to the City in some regards, but that did not make it an appealing place to be.

It was too busy, much too cramped, and held too many people for the Exo's liking. This was the reason she spent most of her time outside the City's walls. Even back in the day, on the slopes of Felwinter Peak, in the times of the Iron Lords, the noise would just overwhelm her at times. At least on the rooftops, where she had resided these past few days, she could avoid it all, but here, on ground level, it was torture.

A Titan would have been fine with her surroundings. Of all the Guardian orders, they were the ones to spend most of their time within the walls. The Titans' were the ones who  _built_  most of them for Traveller's sake! The Warlocks, though much preferring their own company, at least some of the time, could find themselves as much at home as a Titan would, in their sweeping libraries, stocked full of Golden Age knowledge and secrets.

A Hunter, though, was a different beast entirely. Their home was the wilds, the rough, untamed lands of the solar system. Was a Hunter selfish at times with this creed? Possibly… but a vault of treasure never found itself. Now that she thought about it, that very same instinct might have been what led her to Mars in the first place, and the mess Fortuna had found herself in…

Tracer had been tight-lipped about her flat's location, despite the Huntress having a vague idea of where to start looking. It might have taken her a few days to track it down by herself, but that was beside the point.

Fortuna's musings were interrupted by Tracer's abrupt voice. "Listen, love, I know you're not exactly going to trust everyone you meet," she pondered a little on her next few words, "but I think I know someone who'll be willing to help you out."

"Oh?" Fortuna inquired.

"His name's Winston, he's... an old friend of mine, and... well, he's probably the smartest guy I know." She snickered. "Though that's not sayin' much, 'cause I grew up in the East End!" Tracer hunched over, grabbing her stomach as her chuckles devolved into a fit of mad laughter that brought forth many questioning glances from passers-by, and took several minutes for her to calm down.

This left Fortuna with some time to gather her scattered thoughts. She had originally planned to... what  _had_  she planned to do? Her first priority as a Guardian was, naturally, to find a way to contact the Vanguard, a goal that, as the days had passed, was becoming a distant impossibility.

This world was advanced, impressively so, in some aspects, but it was nowhere near that of her own time. If the Light had yet to reach this place, if it ever would, it would be impossible to find another Vex gate, and even if she were to, Vex technology was stupidly complicated, even for her. Looking back, it was a miracle her atoms were not scattered across the Void, right now.

That left her with only one other option. Endure here, in this time. The thought sparked a deep sorrow in her mechanical heart. She would never see the city again. She would never see her friends again. Saladin, Efrideet, Cayde, Ikora, Amanda... all of them. If news of her disappearance had reached them yet, they would surely think her dead. Another Guardian lost to the Darkness. The Exo would have cried if her maker's had designed her so.

Lena finally calmed down just in time to notice the Exo's spell of silent despair. "You alright there, love?" she said, gulping down air.

"I'm fine," Fortuna lied.

The rest of the way back to Tracer's apartment complex was thankfully uneventful, as was the slow creep through the silent building to reach the Brit's door. Upon entering, the two women were greeted by the thick smell of tea. It seemed as though Tracer's partner, 'Emily' if Fortuna recalled correctly, was home. The television was on, depicting the evening news, a kettle was whistling from the somewhere in the kitchen, and an all too familiar redhead was lying carefree on the sofa.

"Evening, pet," she greeted to the fellow Englishwoman with a tired stretch.

Tracer stepped forwards, wrapping her arms around Emily as the two embraced each other. Fortuna looked away, respectfully, opting to cross her arms as her optics looked upon the far window, and how... clean and new it was.

Emily looked over to the Exo, unimpressed. Fortuna looked sheepish, or as sheepish as she  _could_  look.  _The repair must have been expensive._

In an attempt to defuse the tension in the room, Tracer placed herself between the two. "I'll just, uh, show 'er the spare room, Ems."

Emily gave Tracer a small smile before disappearing into the kitchen, where the whistling was getting louder. "Sorry 'bout Ems," Tracer told the Exo apologetically, "she's still a little pissed about the window."

The Brit led Fortuna out of the living room and down a short hallway. Adorning the walls were a series of photographs, some portraying Lena, some Emily, some of the two together, and some that depicted a woman Fortuna did not recognise. She was tall, pale-skinned and pretty, with a sleek black ponytail and a thin, graceful form. One particular picture caught the Exo's optics. It showed the pony-tailed woman lying gracefully on a sunbed with Tracer wrapped in her slender arms beside her, both wearing expressions of bliss.

Tracer coughed, refocusing the Exo's attention. "This is the guest-room," she said quietly, gesturing to a door on her left, "and that's the bathroom," she waved to a door behind her. "Need anything, just give me a shout." Her voice seemed almost... dampened, all excitement drained from her face as she looked back to the photo Fortuna pointed out, before vacating to the kitchen to join her girlfriend.

 _Odd_ , Fortuna thought as she opened the guest door.  _Very odd._

To say that the small room was sparsely decorated would have been an understatement. The only furniture the bedroom contained was the bed itself, and a small mirror hanging on the wall. Fortuna strode over to it, removing her cowl and tossing it onto the bare mattress. She leant forwards in the light of the city shining through the cramped window, examining the face that stared back at her in the dirtying glass.

The Exo was, to put simply, a mess. Her otherwise snow-toned faceplates were covered in a thin layer of grime she had most likely acquired from her time on the streets, highlighted by the dirt that had built up in the cracks where the plates met. The sight made Fortuna feel a little ill. Her biggest gripe with having an artificial body: the laborious task of cleaning it. She left cramped quarters, as she made for the washroom, opening the door before locking it shut behind her.

The bathroom, like the rest of the flat, was a rather small one, barely fitting a tall, glassy shower cubicle, a sink, toilet, and a cluster of metal racks, each sporting a handful of fluffy white towels, emblazoned on which were a grey and orange symbol the Guardian did not recognise. The room was immaculate, every surface shining in the light from the ceiling. This was good. Fortuna felt filthy enough as is.

Now with some much-appreciated privacy, the Exo tapped a button on her glove, her dirtying clothes vanishing from sight, leaving her naked to the air. The... misinformed believed Exos to be nothing more than sentient drones, built for the sole purpose of destruction, and that their human-like features were purely aesthetic, serving no other intention than to create a likeness to their human creators. These ignorant few were wrong. An Exo's body was as human as their mind was.

Removing her gauntlet and setting it aside by the sink, Fortuna ran her bare metal hands down her frame, caressing where hard plasteel gave way to synthetic muscle. She raised her hands to her breasts, gently squeezing the soft mounds and savouring the way her skin began to tingle with delight. A moan threatened to escape her mouth as her hands began to massage lower, and lower, to the parting between her...

A rattle against the door brought the Exo crashing back to reality. "That you in there, love?"

Caught off-guard in the worst of ways, Fortuna bumbled together a "Y-y-yes?" in response.

_Traveller damn it!_

"Oh, sorry, love," said Tracer on the other side, "Em's putting dinner on. You want anything?"

Too flustered to give the Brit a piece of her mind for interrupting her... alone time, she said instead, "Uh, yeah, just give me a... uh..." She did not bother to finish the statement as she swiftly made the short distance to the shower, turning the tap to full, metal toes all the while clattering against the tile floor.

Through the door, the Exo heard the squeak of Tracer's shoes moving away, leaving Fortuna feeling slightly dirtier than when she had entered, and not in the physical sense, either. At least the water felt soothing on her plates... and on her skin... and on her...  _oh my_.

* * *

The rest of the evening was surprisingly pleasant. Emily prepared dinner, sparing the three women from the consequences that would have arisen from Lena's well-meant, but disastrous attempts at cooking. Fortuna joined them for the meal, after spending a suspiciously long amount of time in the shower, in Lena's opinion. The Exo insisted it was because her chassis was a difficult thing to clean. Lena didn't believe her.

Emily eventually warmed up to the Guardian, after Fortuna gave her a  _very_  abridged account of her situation. The bottle of wine that Lena had procured for the occasion might have helped. After the redhead went to bed, more than a little tipsy, the Exo made way to follow suit, not entirely sober, herself. Lena stooped her, calling to her from her seat on the couch as Fortuna rose from her armchair.

"Mind if we talk for a bit?" she asked, in a voice loud enough to demand attention, but quiet enough to not make a scene.

Fortuna didn't answer, but she sat back down, regardless, as she gave the Brit a small nod.

It took a moment for Lena to compose herself. There was so much she needed to say to the Guardian, but she had no idea of where to start. "You... remember what I said 'bout Winston?"

Fortuna's mouth flashed as she spoke. "Yeah, he's part of this 'Overwatch' group, like you, isn't he? You said he could help me out."

Lena sighed. She did  _not_  want to be having this conversation. She lowered her voice, despite there being no one around to hear them. "A few years back, Overwatch was...disbanded." The last word proved difficult to say, as her brain almost refused to say it.

"Disbanded?" asked the Exo.

Another sigh. "Yeah... corruption, mostly. A few higher-ups got wind of it, and they shut Overwatch down. Absolute shit-show when that went happened."

"Okay..." Fortuna said, sounding like she was not too keen on what she was hearing. "So what does this have to do with Winston helping me?"

Lena refused to look the Exo in the optics as she mumbled, "A few nights back, might 'ave been the one you appeared, Winston initiated a... well, he..." Lena faltered again. She knew she had told the Exo too much. Far, far too much. Winston had told her to stay quiet about it, to tell no one, absolutely no one, about the 'recall' as he called it, but here she was, blabbing to a stranger she'd just met.

Fortuna finished her half-baked sentence, realisation clear in her electronic voice. "He re-established Overwatch." She leaned back in her armchair, looking at the Brit with an unreadable expression, "If I were to accept help from him, it would be... illegal on my part, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah... I just wanted you to..." Lena answered, her voice a whisper as she deflated into her seat. The air was heavy with the weight of the words.

Fortuna continued to stare blankly at her, before catching the Brit off-guard in the most spectacular of ways. She started  _laughing_ , jaw bobbling up and down as the bulbs in her mouth flashed like strobe lights. "You're worried that a  _Hunter_  would have problems with... by the Traveller, Tracer, let me tell you the first thing you need to know about Hunter-"

Lena never heard what it was the Exo wanted her to hear as Fortuna herself cut off, mirth vanishing from her voice in an instant as she was shaken by a violent shudder, as if she had been just plunged into an ice bath. Her head turned this way and that way as her eyes darted about the small apartment, fearful.

"You alright, love?" Lena asked tentatively, startled by the Exo's behaviour.

The Guardian ignored her, rising from her seat as sparks began to cluster about her fingers. A loud thud echoed through the room, as something hard hit against the front door. Lena stood up, taking a few steps towards it, but not before Fortuna grabbed her by her shirt, and throwing her one-handedly to the floor behind her.

"Stay down!" the Huntress bellowed, her cry drowned out by the deafening crack of a cannon and as the front door exploded in a shower of burnt splinters. The blast caught Fortuna full on as the burning hot wood tore through the front of her tunic, cindering the fabric where it made contact. Dazed, Lena watched in horror as a second shot rang out from the shadows, knocking the Exo off her feet and onto her back, her green robe now a scorched mess. Picking herself up, Lena made to dart to the bedroom, where her pistols were tucked away, but a blow to the chest sent her flailing back to the floor.

A figure was stood before her in the thick mist of gunsmoke and sawdust. He was dressed in a sweeping black coat, and a semblance of a bone-white skull masked over his face. His gloves were clawed like talons on a great raven and his form radiated death and pain. In his hands, he held a twin pair of shotguns, their metal black as darkest midnight, both aimed directly at Lena.

_Reaper._

"Hello again,  _Lena_ ," he spoke, voice dripping with unbridled hatred, before kicking the Brit in the sternum, hard enough for Lena to cry out in pain loud as a rib gave way. He carelessly tossed his weapons aside, as if the act of holding them was becoming an annoyance, the guns landing far outside of Lena's immediate vicinity, despite the room's size. She made a mad rush for one of them, anyway, but Reaper was too fast for her. He grabbed her by the throat, raising her effortlessly off the ground, his talons digging into the soft flesh of her neck.

The Englishwoman thrashed and writhed in his grip, as she had done under the assassin's grasp those few nights before, dearly wishing for the harness that sat only a few feet away on its charging station. Reaper began laughing again, the empty chuckles almost paralysing Lena with fear. However, as soon as the harrowing sounds began to chorus through her mind, they stopped. They were replaced by a voice, Fortuna's voice, ringing with the majesty of a howling wolf at the full moon.

"Put. Her. Down!"

The masked brute dropped the Englishwoman, who scurried away from him as swiftly as she could. Lena looked over to where the Exo had arisen from the floor, but it was not her ruined attire or the bloody pool at her feet that caught her attention. The woman was  _ablaze_. Her skin glowed a deep orange, like that of a sun, as flames flowed about her, as the lightning had done nights prior. The sky-blue lights that adorned her face were now burning like fiery coals in their sockets. Smoke billowed from the cracks in her faceplates as her robes burned on her lithe form. In her strong hand, she held one of Reaper's discarded guns, the metal appearing molten under the Guardian's fire.

Reaper made a move for something hidden in his coat, but the Guardian was too fast for him. A jet of flame burst from the barrel with an ear-splitting clap, striking the villain in the stomach as he exploded like a grotesque firework of sparks, black leather scraps and charred flesh, so that all that remained of his presence was the clatter of his mask as it fell to the wooden floor.

The remains of the man were only just settling as Fortuna collapsed to the ground, chest heaving, clothes ashes, skin still smoking. Lena rushed to her side, turning her over onto her stomach. She wasn't breathing. The Brit dashed to the bedroom, to find Emily cowering under their bed, tears leaking down her cheeks. With no time to console her girlfriend, Lena rummaged amidst the clutter on her nightstand, desperately looking for her phone. She found it, and with shaking fingers she dialled the only number worth remembering.

After an agonising long few seconds, it answered.

" _Hallo_? Doctor Ziegler speaking-" answered a lively voice through the speaker at her ear.

Lena cut her off, her words hurried and frantic, "Ange! It's Lena. Before you say anythin', listen, I don't 'ave time to explain, but there's a woman bleeding out in me livin' room and I could really,  _really_  use a hand right now!"

There was a long pause before Angela Ziegler responded, and the Brit was worried the connection had gone dead. When the doctor spoke, her words were curt, all joviality cast aside, "Lena, I can be in London within the hour. Keep the line going, and do exactly as I say."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the late chapter, but this one was a real pain in the ass to write and so it took me a while for me to get it somewhat the way I wanted, but I hope you guys like it all the same.
> 
> As always, I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	6. The New Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back; for the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack." - Rudyard Kipling

**Talon Base, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, [April 9th, 2076]**

In all her time at Talon, the Widowmaker had never found herself with any desire to visit a firing range; she believed her aim already flawless, and that an artificial target made for a very dull kill. A few days following the disaster that had been the assassin's mission, however, the blue-skinned woman broke tradition. With a newly reassembled rifle in hand, one of the only acts of goodwill her superiors had shown her all week, she had spent almost the entire day firing round after round at as many practice dummies she could acquire in her cross-hairs.

Despite her failure, and the assassin's fervent requests, the shadowy organisation had yet to issue the order for her mind to be swept mind clean, and so the blood-thirst that had formed those few nights past was growing ever stronger with each passing day. Even after consuming enough ammunition for the sniper's periwinkle hands to appear black with soot and dummy-remains, her yearning for vengeance persisted, still. She returned to her room, frustrated, and neglecting to clean off the filth that now coated both herself and her weapon. Spending the rest of the evening sitting alone in her quarters, drenched in cold sweat, all she could do was muster whatever willpower she could scrap to not kill the next thing she saw.

She was a loyal soldier, following every order sent her way without question or quarter, and the incident in London had hardly been her fault. So why, oh why, had Talon forsaken her so? Had all her previous exploits been for nought? Did one  _singular_ lapse in duty constitute her suffering? The Widowmaker certainly new  _her_ opinion.

A loud thud interrupted her brooding, and the foul stench one would associate with a rotting corpse began to waft in from through the threshold. The list of people in the world who would dare to come to her quarters directly was not as short as the assassin would preferred it to be, indeed, but that  _stench_  could only belong to one man.

Wrinkling her nose, she strutted quickly to the door and yanked it open. As she had guessed, the looming form of Reaper, one of her... associates, greeted her. Like the assassin, he appeared in a state of disarray. His normally sleek black coat was cindered and torn, and his trademark bone-white mask was forgone, a low hanging hood hid his face, instead. Even his outline looked disheveled, thin veils of smoke seemed to leach off his form into the air, before sinking back down into the leather of his coat after a few seconds. The phrase 'dead man walking' seemed more than an apt description, in the assassin's mind.

"What happened to you?" she asked, her irritation making way for curiosity, not that she was concerned at all about his health.

Reaper raised his head by an inch, a patch of dead skin on his jaw coming into view for a brief moment. "Could say the same thing to you,  _Lacroix_ ," the dead man growled, his voice that which would have chilled any other woman to the bone.

Widow clenched her fists. She might have preferred 'Lacroix' to 'Amélie' any day of the week, but her skin crawled at the sound of the name, all the same. "What do you want,  _Faucheur_?" she asked instead, whatever interest she might have had in the conversation vanishing.

Reaper said nothing for a moment, before reaching for the insides of his coat, pulling out a slim brown folder, and passing it to the Frenchwoman. It looked to contain only a single page, but the sight of it made Widow's heart skip a little. A gift such as this could only mean one thing: a kill.

The assassin made short work of opening the dossier, her hands acting without care or caution. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a photograph that doted itself to the lion's share of the page. It depicted an all too familiar armoured woman in flowing green cape, and the head of a wolf framing her own. The hatred that had settled in her gut since her failure writhed at the sight.

Reaper turned his back on her and began to walk away, his outline becoming more raged by the second, his heavy boots clunking against the metal floor. Widow's voice made him stop in his tracks. "When?" she asked, hungrily, her voice almost zealous.

A hollow laugh echoed through the corridor as the dead man kept walking. "Now," he said.

Within seconds, Widow had grabbed her rifle and changed into her combat attire, before she sprinted to the base's hangar. A wan smile began to form across the killer's face at the prospect of revenge.

No... that wasn't right. She was not a killer; she was an artist.

* * *

**Overwatch Headquarters, Gibraltar [April 10th, 2076]**

Technically speaking, an Exo did not  _dream_. A dream is nothing more than a fantasy induced by a slumbered brain as a means to organise the happenings of the day. Exos on the other hand, for or a reason lost with their creators, did not behave in such a way. Sometimes, their rest was punctuated instead by memories of times past, every sight, and sound and smell as clear as the day they had transpired. On these uncommon occasions, however, these visions were contorted, misshapen with age to horrific proportions, lacking any sense of order or reason.

_Heads without faces... words spoken beyond understanding... the feeling of ice on the skin... the burning of cold... the scraping of metal... the hum of machinery, a voice, sharp with authority._

_-wall's taking a hammering. Forty-two, get down at the main gate. Until Rasputin gives us the go-_

Fortuna awoke with a jolt, breathless, her optics flaring into life as she found herself torn from her nightmare. As an unpleasant mixture of panic and fatigue coursed through her mind, she was barely aware of what she was doing. Her chest was heaving and her limbs were scrambling in what felt like bindings.

With effort, she tried to focus her eyes on something, anything to distract herself.

Her optics darted her eyes about her surroundings, expecting to find the familiar dusty cubbyhole that was Tracer's bare spare bedroom. To her surprise, however, the space she found herself in could not have been any more different.

For starters, this room was much more furnished. Flanking her bed were a stout set of nightstands, polished white wood gleaming in the light of an amber-tinted window adorning the wall behind her headboard. Across from her bed stood a sea blue leather sofa, atop which lay a matching array of plump-looking cushions. To her right was a wardrobe, bedside which was a door, swung wide open, leading to a blindingly sterile en-suite, while another door stood closed shut beside the couch.

The Exo's mind began to calm, her breath becoming more stable, and her panic making way for a dumb mental fog. She could practically feel the gears in her head grinding to a halt.

_Where... am I?_

A numb stab of pain shot through her stomach, breaking the Huntress' stupor. Fumbling her hand over her abdomen she could feel, through the thin linen of her bedsheets, the soft edges of cotton bandages wrapped neatly about her torso like a vest and from through these, the tell-tale broken outlines of jagged, torn-up metal. It was a feeling that the Exo, across all the lives she had lived, had become at least somewhat accustomed to.

Not wasting a second, Fortuna planted her hand a little more firmly against her chest, pain flaring at the contact. She closed her eyes, willing Light into the wound as she had done countless times before. Her skin began to glow a soft yellow, as the metal plates contracted, melding themselves sleekly, and most uncomfortably, back together.

Once the metal had finished its mending, Fortuna breathed a sigh of relief, her skin turning back to flawless snow, as a short, soft drumming became known from her shut door.

"Um... come in?" she said, drawing her ghostly-white sheets an inch higher to cover herself.

The door slid open, revealing none other than...

"Mornin' love!"

Fortuna eased herself upright, massaging her newly repaired flesh as the familiar form of Tracer came into view from the doorway. She looked about the same as when Fortuna had met her, her vibrant, mismatched apparel seeming at home with the bedroom's decor. Despite the her enthusiasm, however, the Fortuna's panic flared up, full force, at the sight of her.

"That... man... what happened? Are you alright?" the Exo's voice was a hair's breadth away from hysterics. If she had been too late with her Light...

"Easy, love, easy," Tracer said, delicately, darting to Fortuna's side, and placing a gentle hand on the Iron Lady's shoulder, "Whatever... it was that you did, it worked. Might be a little banged up, but we're alright, okay?" The Brit raised her shirt by a few inches, revealing a set of dressings akin to Fortuna's own around her chest.

The Exo breathed a sigh of relief, sinking a little deeper into her cushions. She spoke again, though much calmer this time. "What... what happened. How long have I been...?"

"You've been out for," Tracer said, removing her hand so as to inspect a watch strapped to her wrist, "'bout... twenny-odd hours."

Fortuna grimaced internally.

Tracer seemed to notice. Giggling slightly, she plopped herself down on the end of Fortuna's mattress, pulling her knees up to her chest like a small child. "Yeah... you've been pretty out of it since we left London."

The Exo turned back to the Englishwoman, tilting her head back in a confused manner.

"After Reaper, that masked guy back in the flat, shot you up we had to move you here. Easier for the Doc to sort you out that way."

A million questions formed in Fortuna's head. She raised a metal hand to her temples, stars already beginning to appear in her eyes.

"So, where is here, exactly?" the Exo asked, abruptly, changing the subject before her headache overtook her.

Tracer bounced to her feet, aiming a thumb at the door behind her. "The big guy's waitin' for us in the briefin' room. If you wanna get dressed I can explain on the way-"

She broke off, as Fortuna, not wasting a second, began unraveling her bandages, tossing her sheets off herself and swinging her legs over the bed frame. Tracer looked away, blushing slightly as the Exo's naked frame became came into full view.

Tracer tore her eyes away, as she quickly muttered, "I-I'll just be... oh, bloody hell," before vacating to the hallway, blushing furiously.

Chuckling, Fortuna set the now loose bundle of cotton aside on her nightstand, and running her hand across her stomach, testing her gut, which was now gleaming in the room's  _ambience_  as if newly-forged.

She padded over to her wardrobe, feeling soft carpet between her toes. Dressing herself in a hooded jumper, one the same garish shade as her sofa, and a matching pair of boots and cargo pants, she gave her door a rattle.

"It's safe," she said, barely concealing laughter as the door opened once more to reveal the Brit's face, now scarlet with indignant.

"I have a girlfriend, you know!" she said, blushing and affronted.

"It's not as if you've never seen it before," Fortuna replied, her memories of the night prior forming on her mind's forefront. "How is your partner, by the way? Last I saw she'd made for bed."

"Oh, she's fine. Still a little shook, though, bless 'er. Gonna be spendin' some time with the fam'ly for a while," Tracer said, still peeved as the Exo's optics roamed the space her room had given way to.

It was reminiscent of the corridor the Huntress had found herself in on Mars, wide and sweeping, doors leading off on either side, excluding, of course, the century's worth of decay. On the contrary, the place looked more like a construction site than anything else did; with step ladders, scraps of wire and boxes of all sorts and sizes littering the floor, and the fresh, foul odour of paint was thick in the air.

Tracer began making her way down this, but Fortuna did not follow, at least not right away. Instead, she made a beeline for a wide window just opposite to 'her' room, where a warm orange light was streaming in.

Through the glass, she could make out what appeared to be the edge of a cliff only a few feet away, but beyond that, the Exo could see the radiant golden form of a setting sun, half-buried beneath the horizon of a glistening blue sea. She had seen such a thing literally hundreds of thousands of times before, in all her centuries, but the star never ceased to amaze her.

"You followin' or what?" she heard Tracer say from somewhere further down.

Fortuna turned on her heel, catching up to the Englishwoman in no time at all, as Tracer she began pointing out rooms of notice as they passed them: toilets, showers, mess hall and the such.

"So, what actually is this place?" the Exo found herself asking as the two passed a derelict armoury. "Some sort of military base?"

"Not exactly," Tracer replied, "Back in its day, when Overwatch was, you know, around, this ol' place was one of our main research spots. 'Watchpoint: Gibraltar', it's-" Her voice broke off, as she led the Exo around a corner, before almost colliding with another woman going the opposite way.

She was slimmer and shorter than the Exo, though not by much, and her head as capped by a messy blonde bun. Though pale, she had a mature, but oddly youthful face. Garbed in a bleach-white, Fortuna figured her for a doctor, probably the one who had prepared her bandages.

"Oops! Didn't see ya there Ange!" Tracer said quickly, almost tripping over her own feet as she backed away from the potential accident.

The doctor tutted in response, straightening her coat as her grip on a clipboard between her fingers tightened. "You really must be careful,  _Liebing_ ," she said kindly, casting her eyes over to the Exo beside her, "Ah, you're awake. I was just coming to check on you. How are you... feeling?" she asked the Guardian. Fortuna noticed that her words were punctuated by a soft Swiss accent.

Fortuna subconsciously ran a hand over her still-numb stomach. "I'm... good," she replied rolling her shoulders. "You're the one who bandaged me up, right? 'Ange', was it?"

" _Doktor_  Angela Ziegler, at your service," she replied offering the Exo a hand and casting another glance at her gut. "I'm sorry that there was not much I could do for you," the Swiss woman said, her face turning slightly glum, "You're anatomy is... strange."

Fortuna shuffled her feet uncomfortably at the statement. The concept of this doctor 'examining' gave her...  _mixed_ feelings.

"I will be on my way, then," Angela continued to Guardian, "after you two have finished with Winston, I will want to do a full check-up. I'm sure Lena can show you the way."

With that, she turned on her heel, walking down the hall a short way and disappearing through a door on her left.

"So," Tracer said, breaking the awkward spell that followed, her face visibly anxious, "I've... given Ange and the big guy a, uh, rundown 'bout ya."

Fortuna turned back to face her, not entirely sure she liked the sound of that. "Oh? What did you say?" she inquired.

Tracer gave the back of her head a nervous scratch. "Well, I told 'em what you told me. Seven hun'red years into the future, magic space god, alien portal, that sorta thing."

"How did they take it?" the Exo asked, becoming nervous, herself.

"Believed me well enough," Tracer responded a little more brightly, walking a short distance down the cluttered stretch, before stopping in front of a set of neat blue double doors, emblazoned with the same design as the insignia on her bath towels back in her apartment, a grey 'O' with an amber upper quarter crossed by a 'W'. "But I dunno if they wanna hear it from you too, or-"

Fortuna placed her hand on the other woman's shoulder, interrupting her ramble, the Guardian's respect for the Brit rising tenfold. "Tracer," Fortuna said, softly. The Brit turned, her chestnut brown eyes meeting the Exo's blue. "Thank you... for everything."

"Lena," the Tracer replied with a small smile.

Fortuna tilted her head, confusedly.

"Lena. It's m'name," Tracer said again, turning back around and tapping out a small sequence into an adjacent side-panel, "Guess I can trust ya with it now, seein' as how you did save me and Em's life, you know," she added as the doors slid open.

Upon entering, Fortuna struggled for a moment for the proper word to describe the room in which she now found herself in. It appeared part meeting room, part workshop, part animal enclosure, and more than a few parts mess.

Mounted on a far wall was flat projection, depicting a bright orange world map. From where she stood, Fortuna could see that certain areas were highlighted in a bright blue. She even recognised some of them: Old Russia, European Dead Zone...

Other than this, the room gave itself heavily to even more clutter. In a corner, surrounded by a small mountain of boxes and scrap metal was a suit of armour, sleek and new-looking, and much too large for any regular person to fit inside comfortably.

The Exo soon realised to whom the suit belonged. Sat at a low table, one barely higher than the Exo's knees, and large enough to sit eight people around it, standing a short distance from Fortuna's entrance was quite possibly the strangest sights she had seen all century: a gorilla, one of a size to put even the brawniest of Titans to shame, making its (his? What was it?) way through a sizable bunch of bananas.

Like the doctor, he too wore a lab coat, albeit his looked much more worn in, as great sweeps of it were burned, patched or otherwise stained by Traveller-knows-what. Set over his eyes were a slim pair of glasses, grossly contrasting against his bulky head. The sight almost bringing forth a burst of laughter from the Guardian.

The Exo could only stare dumbly at the sight, however, the lights of her face flashing uselessly as words refused to form, as the primate casually rose from his seat of stacked rubber tires. "Lena? Why is there a..." she finally tried to ask the Englishwoman beside her, dearly hoping this was all some fever dream from her injuries.

The primate opened his mouth, and in a deep, rumbling tone replied, with a straight his spectacles and a kind smile to the Guardian, "Ah, you're here. Excellent." His face turned pensive for a moment as he regarded the Exo, who had taken a step back in shock. "I take it Lena did not tell you about, well, me."

Fortuna shook her head, casting an exasperated glance at Lena, still a little dazed.

"Ah, well," the monkey said, slumping back down onto his stack of tires. "My name is Winston, acting commander of Overwatch."

In all fairness, a seven foot tall talking primate was not the most outlandish of beings Fortuna had ever met. Granted, had Fortuna been armed, and the circumstances been any different, this 'Winston' would now be spending his days in the pit between the stars.

Fortuna swallowed, thickly. "So, you're the one in charge around here?" she asked, taking a hesitant step towards the table, her confidence growing, "Tracer, Lena, sorry, told me that she told you about my... situation, shall I say?"

"Yes, Lena did give me the rundown about you… and about your time," Winston replied, his tone turning wondrous, meeting the Exo's eyes, "If you don't mind me saying, it was... remarkable. A Golden Age of technology... life beyond our system... just,  _remarkable_."

"It's good to hear you say that," Fortuna replied, a little taken aback, " but 'Remarkable' isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe it." Her voice turned cold as she spoke the latter.

"No, no, of course not!" Winston blustered, both he and Lena startled by the statement, "I didn't mean to offend-"

Fortuna cut him off with a hand and a sigh. "Don't worry 'bout it. I was kind of the same, back when I was first... when I  _arrived_  into the world." She caught her words at the last second, remembering that she had yet to inform anyone of a Guardian's power to resurrect. Thankfully, her blunder appeared unnoticed.

"Yes, well," Winston continued, his mind no doubt turning over the Exo's half-lie, "If you would take a seat," he raised a massive hand to a stool stood across from him, before the floating orange globe, "We can 'get down to business' as it were."

Fortuna obliged, pacing the short distance to the seat, Lena, who had yet to speak, following suit, until Winston called out to her. "Could you gather the others for us?"

Had Fortuna possessed eyebrows, she might have raised them. "Others?" she asked. She already knew of the doctor, Angela, but how many other agents were there? Would she have to recall her tale to a group of five? Ten? Half a battalion?!

Fortuna felt the lights of her face dim despite herself in an Exo estimation of a blanch. What  _had_  she gotten herself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said updates would be weekly or fortnightly? Yeah, my bad.
> 
> Between my laptop breaking down, seven or eight rewrites, I lost pretty much all motivation to finish this, so it may have turned out a little shorter and a lot later than I'd intended.
> 
> Anyways, I will do my best to be more frequent in my updates, although another chapter may not be finished until the new year.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, leave a Kudos if you enjoyed or if you have any questions or critiques, feel free to leave a comment!
> 
> I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	7. A Gathering Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Perun, in shadow clad, behind the shield / through cleansing fire our hiding foes revealed." - The Iron Song, Second Verse.

**Overwatch Headquarters, Gibraltar [April 11th, 2076]**

It took a few moments for Fortuna to recollect exactly how she had awakened. Had it been the echoing boom of distant thunder, the rattle of shattering glass on steel, or had it been the sensation of her slamming her head, quite painfully, against something  _rather_  hard?

It had turned out to be the lattermost.

Raising her head, she raised a dreary hand to smooth over her brow-plate, as the metal began to pain in a dull throb, and moving her optics over her surroundings.

She was in the mess hall, sat at one of the few sweeping steel tables that took up the majority of the floor-space, each one gleaming in the pale light of the moon from through the skylight. She must have dozed off while doing… something.

Her eyes wandered to the polished metal before her. Just out of reach of her left hand, which remained sprawled atop the metal counter, was a bottle, tall and empty, save for a smidgen of honey liquid at the base. Its cork was discarded, and a wad of paper barely the size of her hand sat propped against it. Beside this was a glass, overturned, and thankfully empty. That would explain her migraine.

It must have been well into the early hours of the morning if the moon overhead was any indication. Groggy, the Exo rose from her bench, straightening her metal spine with a soft clink. Padding as quietly as she could, her hangover notwithstanding, she made her way out into the main hall.

Despite the late hour, Fortuna soon found herself in a gentle stride, the soft clunks of her booted feet barely birthing an echo as hallway after hallway passed her by. She may have been a creature of the Light, but she was no stranger to darkness. The dim blues of her optics certainly helped.

The whole place was silent, eerie, even, curfew long since passed and all other 'agents', as Winston called them, tucked away in their rooms... or in  _other's rooms_.

At last, after nearly tripping over a half-empty can of precariously placed bright orange paint, she made it to outside her's. Leaning over to the control panel beside the door, her motor skills still stiff from drink, she punched in the code.

**21-12-23-30**

Nothing. Strange. It was working earlier. She tried again, more carefully this time.

**21-12-23-30**

Still nothing. Had someone changed her keycode on her? She could have sworn that... Her mechanical jaw clamped shut in frustration, she raised her hand again, when-

"Late night?"

A voice rang out from the dim glow of the panel. A screen, like that of a mobile device, flickered into life above it, illuminating the Exo's face and the broad stretch of hallway around her. Displayed upon it was a single word, 'Athena', in bold white letters, and an icon reminiscent of an upside-down 'V' above it in sea-blue.

"Athena," the Exo greeted, dryly, her hatred for the machine burning through her drunken stupor.

"Agent Fortuna," the A.I. repeated, equally as hostile.

Fortuna glared at the icon. "Is there a reason my code isn't working?" she asked, trying her best to keep her tone level.

"Other than that you are three hours, forty-three minutes and one point one seven seconds late for curfew?"

The Exo glowered in response, the lights of her mouth burning in their sockets. "I was asleep," she finally growled. The  _machine_  knew this. It knew everything that transpired at the Mediterranean base. Surveillance... agent vital signs. Fortuna suspected the blasted A.I. controlled even the headquarters' defences. In short, Fortuna  _hated_  her, and the feeling was far from exclusive.

"You are aware of Overwatch's policies?" Athena continued, her modulated tone heavy with contempt.

Fortuna tilted her head back a notch, a dry laugh escaping her. "You mean that  _handbook_?" Winston had gifted her said pocket-sized fifty-page waffle some days prior to her 'induction' as the primate described it. It had since been destroyed in a completely unrelated firing range incident.

"Yes, the handbook," the A.I. continued, "Agent Fortuna-"

The Huntress cut her off. " _Lady_  Fortuna, thank you."

Athena fell silent for a moment. The Exo allowed herself a chuckle, as she could practically hear the subroutines screaming in frustration.

When she spoke again, it was in a low, dangerous tone. "I realise that you pride yourself with a complete disregard for authority-"

The Exo tried to but in for a second time, but the A.I.'s voice only grew, regardless of the neighbouring quarters around them. "But I hope  _you_ realise that lawlessness is the reason this organisation shut down in the first place!"

Fortuna said nothing. This was something of a first among the Overwatch crew. Sure, Lena had mentioned... something back in London, before that maniac in the skull mask burst in. The Exo felt a soft shiver up her back at the memory. Such darkness and hatred of his being… it was a surprise that her Light had taken so long to falter in his presence.

A tense moment passed. Fortuna crossed her arms, looking back to the side panel. Athena had calmed down, a hint of shame in her voice as she spoke again. "If you require lodgings for the evening, I suggest you look for a place in town." With that, the screen went blank, and the door remained damnably shut.

A sigh rattled her insides. This was not the first time the two synthetic beings had butted heads, as it were. Leaning into the panel, her eyes and mouth the only source of light in the deserted hall she said, quietly, "Athena..."

If she heard her, Athena made no acknowledgement.

"Athena," she said again, a tad louder.

Nothing.

Slouching back, Fortuna gave up. She turned, looking out the wide window behind her. The sea outside was speckled silver with moonlight, Luna above shining through a thick haze of blackened rainclouds. Storm was on the way.

She was tempted to knock at the door of the quarters around her. Lena certainly wouldn't mind sharing a room with her for the night. No... Athena wouldn't let her hear the end of it. A yawn bubbled from her metal lungs to her lipless maw. She had no desire to spend the rest of the evening alone in the dark. Not while hungover, anyway. She straightened her left cuff, pulling the material a notch lower over the green glove beneath.

A place in town, did the A.I. say?

* * *

 

** Gibraltar Outskirts [5 minutes Later] **

The Widowmaker was not sure which was worse, her unbridled hatred for that damnable machine, or the futility of her attempts at vengeance. A week she had been out here, seven days of unbearable heat, fruitless efforts, and high tempers.

Those Overwatch fools. Of course that wretched woman would have joined them. How could she not have? Damned  _noble_  fools, always doing their best to look after the sheep. That was to say nothing of their ruin of a headquarters, which day by day was soon becoming nothing short of a fortress.

Sensors, micro-turrets and a small garrison of abled agents waiting within its walls, the assassin was half-tempted to call in backup if she ever hoped to get in there.

_No! This is your moment, no one else's!_

Widow raised her gauntlet to her face, swiping away the thin layer of sweat now dripping down her brow. She had taken to a perch overlooking the base's seemingly abandoned urban exterior of fencing, disused equipment and piles of half-demolished scrap, waiting for what would only be a miracle: the moment when that blasted machine finally emerged from hiding. She had been at this post every day for a week under the unyielding springtime weather and urban chatter.

It was one thing to creep from shadow to shadow, stalking out a kill, and knowing that that blessed pull of the trigger was mere moments away. It was quite another to slave away at a post half-hoping, half-praying for a target to reveal themselves while her body betrayed her.

The assassin slackened, rising to a kneel from her prone as she swung her rifle over her shoulder and as her visor slid back to her forehead. She wasn't getting anywhere like this; she needed a new plan.

Darkness had fallen many hours ago, the perfect cover for an assassin such as herself, but her days prior in this wretched city were any indication, it would be little help. She had no reason to believe that machine would reveal herself  _now_ , of all times.

She had seen other 'agents' come and go, however, all under the guise of a hood or the like, clambering over the tall wire fences that barricaded the seemingly abandoned complex while none looked on... while  _almost_ none looked on. It would have been easy, to tug at the trigger, painting the concrete below with blood and brain, but the Widowmaker stayed her hand. She had to. If the organisation were to find her at her perch her chances of revenge were zero to none.

It was infuriating. Even as she stood there, still watching those decrepit rusting gates, another agent was trying their hand to blend into the night. Dressed in an overcoat the colour of polished slate, one a few sizes too big for their slender frame, and a shawl of a tone that of freshly cut grass, the Widow watched the agent creep from behind a dishevelled stack of cinder blocks to the shadow of a rusting loader a short way from the fenced perimeter. Thier feet, though visibly clad in a set of thick high leather boots, made no sound against the mossy gravel.

Their face tilted away from her, aimed through the gate at the street beyond. Everything about them screamed of profession. The assassin was almost jealous. They were nothing like some of the others who had taken a stroll through town that day. Nothing like the copper-skinned, stone face soldier, the mousy-haired teenager or the lumbering one-eyed brute. No, this was someone else entirely. S _omething_ else, entirely.

The Widow might have a felt a stab of pity for them, such talent wasting away in service of a band of self-proclaimed saints. That is, if her cold dead heart allowed for such. She readied her rifle again, her eye peering back through the scope, curious as to who this stranger could be. Were they a mercenary? An assassin such as herself? Maybe she misjudged Overwatch, if they had found it within themselves to ally with such.

Widow kept watching, lowing her visor again to gaze through its infrared. The figure became a burning red silhouette, the ageing concrete hiding them from view doing little to impair the Frenchwoman's vision.

A low chuckle escaped her parted lips.  _No-one can hide from my sight._

The stranger was on the move again, darting like a sprinter to the tall wire gate before her then vaulting it in a single bound and landing on the other side like a seasoned gymnast. It was  _very_  well done, in the assassin's opinion... but not as good as how she, herself, would have done it, mind you.

With the 'abandoned' complex now behind them, the figure straightened up, brushing down their baggy coat and straightening their shawl. If the Widow had not been admiring their little performance, she might have mistaken them for just another bystander, taking a leisurely late-evening stroll through the murky urban outcrop. The agent was on the move again, hands now firmly in their pockets, head low to the ground as they adopted a brisk pace. It seemed as though this stranger had places to be.

An unnatural well of curiosity had managed to wriggle its way to the forefront of her mind. With the almost unbearable monotony of her post, surely a distraction such as this could only  _healthy_ , right? Besides, she was due back at the safehouse anytime now, anyway. What hurt could an untimely arrival be?

With the agent almost escaping her field of view, the assassin made her choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's late... it's short... I know. Writer's block, you know how it is.
> 
> Shout out to WolfsLegend for helping to Beta this work. Check them out. They're awesome!
> 
> As always, leave a Kudos if you enjoyed or if you have any questions or critiques, feel free to leave a comment!
> 
> I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


	8. A Meeting with a Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Glory comes easy when you have allies you can trust." —Lord Shaxx, Crucible Handler and Veteran of the Twilight Gap

  **Quarantine Sector 236, European Dead Zone, Earth [June 3rd** **, 2738]**

The EDZ... it might have been a pleasant place, once upon a time. but now, with the Fallen crews, the miles upon miles of desolate villages and corrupted wasteland, it was anything but homely. Making their way betwixt the tight-knot pines of an ancient wood, a Hunter stalked their prey.

His hood was low and deep-set, composed of roughly stitched, kingly yellow cloth. His armaments were but a single silver-blue sidearm raised one-handedly to the sky and a knife of a length to sever heads, which sat at a sheath on his leg. His prey was nearby, the thunderous explosion not a minute prior was evidence enough. He took care to not lose footing to the stray roots and thorny bramble, vaulting whatever moss-covered logs littered his path, luminous eyes always aimed ahead.

"Not far now," chirped a quiet voice in his ear.

Shiro-4 stopped in his tracks. Keeping as quiet as he could, he aimed his head to the space above his shoulder. Sure enough, the faint blue eye of his Ghost looked back.

He gave the drone a silent nod.

The Ghost bobbed its shell forwards a tad, nodding back.

Shiro turned back to the distance. The trees a short way ahead were starting to thin. The Exo crept forward, boots muffled by the surrounding pine. The forest, itself, matched his silence.

In the distance, the trees almost seemed to vanish entirely, as a barren, grassy clearing came into the Hunter's view.

Well… 'Barren' might not have been the best word. The area might have been lifeless, but it was far from empty.

Taking up the lion's share of the empty space was a downed Fallen craft. Its scrappy, dishevelled hull was in pieces. Two pieces,to be exact. Each was were glowing a smokey orange, a product of the ship's crash, no doubt. Severed wires were sticking out of every inch of debris, still sparkling with whatever energy remained in its core. Bodies, mangled, broken bodies, all Fallen, decored the site, the smouldered capes at their backs a deep devil red. Trees, lifted up by the roots, lay in ruins around the carnage.

And there, in the centre of it all sat a campfire.

Beside it sat another cloaked figure, one most unlike their current company. One of their arms was slack around their knees which were snug against their chest, the other jabbing at the dwindling, dying flames with a stick. A shotgun, all worn white edges and rugged black metal rested beside them. Shiro approached, slowly, entering the site with hands hands on his hips and his sidearm returning to his holster.

"Lady... Fortuna?" he called out, voice echoing in the forest's stillness.

The stranger barely moved a muscle. "That's right," she said. Her face, covered by a helmet, turned to his. Only a narrow strip of black visor betrayed any sense of the meeting of eyes.

Shiro took a step into the firelight, heels crunching on splintered wood bark and yellowing grass. He gave a low whistle. "You take this down by your lonesome?" he asked. "Impressive."

The Lady laughed. "A girl tries her best." She jabbed at the fire again, red-hot sparks dancing into the still air. "I take it you're one of Cayde's boys?" she asked.

Shiro-4 grimaced beneath his orange faceplates, glad that said Vanguard was unable to hear the remark.

"I guess you could say that," he said.

The Lady Guardian chuckled, though her tone was serious. "I take it you didn't track me down just to chat."

The Hunter brought his arms to his chest. "What makes you think I've been tracking you?"

"Only the fact that if I hadn't made camp you would have lost me eight miles back."

Shiro made a face; the Huntress' smug was not lost on him.

"Is this... official business?" she asked, voice still low, but the scout could hear the hint of curiosity slipping into the tone.

Shiro gave an uncomfortable shrug. "It is... and it isn't." Another step towards the flames. "There've been... reports, recent reports, of Fallen activity in and around the Meridian Bay, on Mars."

That caught the Lady Guardian's attention. "The Buried City?" Lady Fortuna asked, "Cabal have the place on lockdown, last I checked. The hell are the Fallen doing there?" She tossed her poker to the side, grabbing her shotgun instead and rising to her feet.

The other Exo shrugged. "We don't know," he admitted, "which is why the Vanguard needs your…" he gave the clearing a wide sweep of his optics, "expertise."

The Huntress turned away from the scout, looking down at the weapon in her hands. "Fine. I'll check it out in the morning, but the next time you see Cayde, tell him he owes Fortuna a drink."

* * *

**Gibraltar Outskirts [April 11th, 2076]**

It may have been dark, damp, cold and dingy, but the room had been cheap, so the Exo could hardly complain. She'd found a hotel, one far from the view of the headquarters' grubby exterior. The Omnic 'manning' the desk at the foyer, an old, rusted-looking thing, had regarded her with suspicion as the Guardian entered, even more so as she handed over the required cash. Fortuna would not have been surprised if she was the only patron the would receive tonight.

Its sensors lingered on her a moment as it (he?) handed over an aged brass key.

Eyes low, the Exo nodded in thanks, keeping her guise close.

Spying a spiral staircase behind the machine, Fortuna approached it and began to climb. She cast her optics over the faded wooden bannisters, the scratched paint and peeling plaster adorning the walls and high ceilings. The air was heavy with dust, as was the burgundy carpet underfoot. It seemed as if whatever grandeur this place might have held in a previous life was well and truly lost to her, not that the Guardian cared.

Having spent many a night alone on forgotten moons and asteroids,  _grandeur_ was not her immediate priority. Banking off the staircase a couple floors above the foyer and down a similarly distasteful corridor, she found her room. Like the rest of the place, the door was in dire need of a makeover, it's once umbra wood was stained grey with age. Thumbing in the key, she entered.

The place was as she expected: bare-bones. A single grubby-looking bed propped against the wall and a lone nightstand adorned with an ugly blue-yellow vase seated atop it, and, of course, more dishevelled paintwork.

She closed the door behind her with a rusty click. Now with some much needed privacy, she pulled loose the damp fabric of her cowl, tossing it lazily to the greying sheets of her mattress. As the ambience of the world outside crept its way through crooked, grime-stained panes of a window overlooking the city at large, Fortuna turned to face it, hands slack against her waist.

As her optics wandered, her mind's eye drifted to a Golden Age text she had stumbled upon in the ruins of the Mumbai Push. It depicted the adventures of a little girl who fell down a rabbit hole, and finding herself in another world, one of talking cats and mad tea-parties. Fortuna could not help but chuckle at such absurdity. Her laughter died in her metal throat as her eyes swept about the streets outside.

Boarded up doors, crumbling mortar, broken glass piled about broken frames, almost every building was run-down. A street light only a few yards away was fluttering uselessly at her, its amber glow doing little against the encroaching shadows. Luna had since hidden herself behind the forming storm overhead, her moonlight barely piercing the grey-black veil.

A wonderland, indeed.

The street light flicked off again, the night stealing away the Exo's sight of the cityscape. Fortuna made a grumble of annoyance, her mouth illuminating her excuse of room. Humming a tune to keep the light flaring, she sat down on the mattress beside her, leaning back so as to stare at the ceiling. Even now, despite the near-total darkness outside, she could feel the pull of the dawn from beneath the horizon. It wouldn't be long until the morning briefing either, in which case the Exo would need to leave this place before the sunrise. She didn't want to get hounded at by that blasted A.I. again for breaking schedule... again.

She moved her metal head to meet the hard pillows, pulling her knees to rest against her chest. Slowly, very slowly, she could feel her optics starting to fade, but, not a moment after they had extinguished completely, a low, obnoxious rattle rang through her antennae. She sat up in an instant. Who would be bothering her at this time of night, so soon after arriving? Swinging her legs clunkily off her mattress, she half-walked, half-slumped to the door, pulling it wide with a hard yank.

"Lady Fortuna," greeted a familiar face.

"Sombra," Fortuna growled.

* * *

**King's Row, London, United Kingdom [April 5th, 2076]**

'Bad' was not quite the word Fortuna would have used to describe her situation. Lying exhausted on her back on some nameless rooftop, her chassis hurt in every place she knew, her Light running on embers. 'Bad' was the last word she'd use. 'Screwed' would have been apter.

Maybe jumping out of that window hadn't been the brightest idea she'd had in her lifetime. She should've stayed put, in the dry, off the streets, without care for the glass that littered her apparel or the numbness in her metal bones.

Not that that mattered now. Even if she knew her way back, she could barely keep herself conscious, let alone move. If she could just...

Fortuna outstretched a weak arm, scooting herself ever-so-slightly against what felt like the railing of the rooftop's edge. Now slumped in a like a sitting corpse, she felt her wolf's head hood press into the hard metal behind her, optics now poised to stare into the stormy skies above.

She did not know how long she lay there, only that it was long enough for the howling winds around her to die down to a hiss, for the grey-black clouds to clear, and for hammering rains to cease in their pitter-patters.

It didn't take long for the thumping of Exo's mechanical heart to eclipse her other senses, blotting out even the bustling street life only a few stories down, until even  _that_ faded into obscurity. She was just so... exhausted. Maybe if she just... lie here for... a while...

* * *

_She felt... weightless. No, that wasn't right._

_Her mind felt like a blur of broken static, like one of those old-timey televisions she had heard so much about, and her antennae buzzed with the sound of gentle winds._

_Where was she? She looked up. The sky above was silent, cloudless, and pink with sunset. Devoid of life. Still._

_She looked to her feet, finding them hidden beneath a plain of green-yellow stalks stretching as far as the optic could see, swaying gently in the warm breeze. With every breath, Fortuna could taste their earthy scent._

_She meant to pluck one, but her arm refused her._

_She looked to the horizon, where a distant mountain sat against the sky, and through a wide notch down the centre, the distant glow of the sun met her face._

_She felt... at peace. This is good land, except..._

_There. A monolith of white, jagged stone rising from the millet to set against the mountains and sinking star. She knew this place..._

_She notched her head skyward again. Closing her eyes, she focused on the wind against her face._

_She was... home._

* * *

**CLICK**.

Fortuna was awake in an instant, eyes gleaming into life behind her visor.

It was morning. At least, that was the impression Fortuna received from the clear blue skies she found herself staring into, and the soft yellow rays that now shone into her optics.

Maybe it had all been a dream? Maybe the events of the night past had all been part of some illusion borne from an evening of drunken antics.

Fortuna grumbled a curse as she raised an arm to press against the railing at her back, and pulling herself to her feet. One hand still clutching the cold metal, she aimed her head upwards, optics scanning the skies.

She saw clouds. Wispy, pale grey clouds drifting lazily with the wind. Birds, pigeons by the look of them, were flying in their flocks about the high-rises around her. What she didn't see... was the Traveller.

 _Damn_. There went that theory. Leaning more against the rail, she peered her eyes downwards, at the streets below.

Where on Earth was she, then?

 **CLICK**.

Fortuna spun around in a tight circle. There was that sound again. A hard metallic click, like that of a turned lock or...

Gun safety.

Back now against the rail, Fortuna now faced a stranger. She was slim, and shorter than the Exo by about an inch. Her head was half-shaven, the hair that remained flecked with purple highlight, as was the shadow about her eyes, and her skin was that of pale bronze. Clinging to slender form was a coat, one of almost violently shaded blue and violet leather, and cut short at the hips and the shoulder.

Loosely locked in her right hand... was a gun, aimed directly at Fortuna's chest.

A machine pistol, to be more precise. Its magazine was long and thin, sticking out of the grip by too many inches to be considered safe. Fortuna didn't even want to know how many bullets the thing held.

"Hands where I can see them,  _amiga_ ," the stranger said, waggling her weapon in a way the Exo could only describe as playful.

Fortuna obeyed, raising her tired arms as much as she could.

The stranger giggled, much like a child would do. "You know," she said, "it took me all  _night_ to track you down."

"Tracked me down?" Fortuna echoed, hands still raised, "What the Hell does  _that_  mean?"

"It means..." the woman's lips curled into a smile, "that I'm not going to kill you."

To say that Fortuna was surprised would be an understatement. She watched in bewilderment as the woman raised the gun in her hand to sit atop her shoulder, while her free hand moved to rest on her hip.

Cautiously, Fortuna lowered her hands. The stranger said nothing as she did so. "Why?" she asked.

" _Why_?" The stranger's smile widened into a grin. "Because,  _chica_ , I want to be your friend."

* * *

**Gibraltar Outskirts [April 11th, 2076]**

The Widowmaker's hunt was proving much more tedious than the assassin had anticipated. It had been amusing, sure, to watch her quarry scutter between the city's many alleyways like some common city rat, but all amusements, even those such as this, eventually lose their lustre. The prey in question had now found refuge in the form of a manky hotel high-rise. From a rooftop across the street, overlooking the building's front, the assassin watched the stranger climb a rickety staircase, and enter a room of a level to match her perch, her crosshairs never leaving the  _rat's_  skull.

The way the stranger sauntered into the room, the way they tossed aside their shadowy cowl, the way they approached the grime-stained glass of their window, it was almost... teasing. As if they were beckoning to the sniper across the street. Tempting her to shoot.

Oh, how the Widowmaker was eager to oblige. Her finger brushed against her rifle's flank, gently flicking the safety. It was too easy. Just one gentle squeeze of the trigger... and her prey would never even see it coming. It had been weeks,  _weeks_ , since her last kill. She could imagine it. The crack of her rifle, the splatter of the stranger's head against the glass before them.

If only the view from through the room's window was not so damnably obscure. The assassin would have loved to see the expression on her soon-to-be victim's face.

If she could just...

A streetlight, the only illumination for this wrecked portion of cityscape, fizzled into nothingness, plunging the world into darkness.

 _No, no, no_ , the assassin thought, her eye leaving her scope so as to frantically lower her visor. This rat was not getting away this easily!

She froze, her fantasy fading from her mind's eye as reality made itself known.

What was she  _doing_? Here she was, in the harrowing rain, fantasizing about some worthless  _rat_  like some thug. Sure this hooded enigma was of Overwatch, that much was at least certain, but they were not her mission, her prize.

The Widow raised a hand to her eyes. What the hell was she doing?

If she were in good fortune, she could make it back to the safehouse without raising  _too_ much suspicion. She raised herself from her prone into a kneel. Slowly, she lowered her visor over her eyes, peering once more through her scope. Her quarry was still there in the room, back turned to the window, facing the door, where a second figure now stood before the threshold.

Were they of Overwatch too? A fellow agent, or perhaps... an informant? Perhaps the Widow could delay her departure a little longer.

No! She was already pushing her luck. She needed to move, now, while she-

If the Widow had even blinked, she might have missed what happened next. The room  _exploded_.

With a crack, more terrible than the deepest thunder, and a flash brighter than any flame shot through the side street. As if struck by a gale, the assassin felt her feet leave the rooftop gravel. She felt the stone beneath her dig into her side as she soared back. Her head met something solid, and the world at bay became a blur.

* * *

"You've taken your sweet time," the Exo said, slumping her shoulder to rest against the door frame.

Sombra gave a half-hearted shrug." What can I say? I've been busy," she said, casually strolling past the Huntress into the cramped hotel room.

Fortuna closed the door behind her.

Sombra's eyes were everywhere but on her company. Fortuna watched them travel between the dirtying bed to the fading walls and cracked window panes. After a while, they returned to meet the Exo's optics. "Nice place, Sombra said with a soft, smug smile.

Fortuna's reply was cold. "I take it there's a reason you're here."

The Latina's smile widened a tad. "Straight to business, huh? I like that, not like the other idiots I have to work with." Smooth as silk, she raised a free hand, and pushed aside a strap of her coat, then reached for something hidden within.

The hand returned a second later, a strip of gleaming metal no longer than an inch present in its palm. Sombra extended it to the Lady Guardian, who took it tentatively with thumb and forefinger.

"Is this what I think it is?" Fortuna asked, raising the metal to her eye.

Sombra nodded. "Everything we discussed in London...  _and_  few choice whatnots for your viewing pleasure."

She aimed a finger to the metal in Fortuna's grip. "Plug that bad boy into a terminal and it'll do  _all_ the rest."

Fortuna gave the device one last look, before depositing it in one of her coat's many pockets.

"I suppose we're done, then," Sombra declared, regaining the Exo's attention. She walked to the door. One hand on the knob, she turned.

"I hope you're not planning on sticking around with those fools."

Fortuna crossed her arms. "Seeing as how they're only people on this rock I can trust... yeah, I am."

"You trust them? Please, tell me you're not _that_ gullible."

Fortuna gave the Latina an indignant look. "Well, after that madman showed up-" She broke off, the memories of nights prior returning, accompanied by that all-too-familiar shiver.

"You never told me about that, by the way."

For the first time that evening, Sombra looked particularly uncomfortable. "Yes, well," she said, "let's just say that Gabe has... how you say...  _history_  with your organisation. The moment he found out about a potential agent hiding out in London, there wasn't much I could say to  _dissuade_ him."

"Plus," she added with a cheeky smile, "a girl's gotta keep up an appearance."

The Exo fixed her with a stare to shatter ice. "Your appearance," she said, through gritted metaphorical teeth, "cost some bastard his life. I hope you can live with that."

To that, Sombra made a rather odd expression. She opened her mouth to speak, but, no doubt deciding against her words, then closed it.

"Let me give you some advice, friend," she said, instead, "I don't know what world it was you came from, but in this one... trust gets you killed."

"I'm trusting you, aren't I?" the Lady Guardian retorted.

Once again, the Latina went silent.

In the silence, Sombra turned back to the door and without a word, she gently turned the knob and stepped into the corridor beyond.

"Oh, one more thing." Her hand returned to the confines of her coat, fishing out something a tad bigger than a flash drive. She threw it. "Catch."

Across the threshold soared what appeared to be a small metallic ball, about the size of a fruit. Fortuna caught it, deftly.

"What's this?" she asked, holding it up.

The smile that had disappeared those few moments ago returned full-force. "Something to give Amélie a... helping hand," Sombra replied in a silky tone.

The Exo didn't like the sound of that. "Who's Amélie?" 

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be seeing her soon enough. Adios,  _amiga._ "

With that, and a soft click, the door swung shut.

Curious, Fortuna raised the orb to her optic. In the dim light of her eyes, the metal appeared to be almost purplish, with deep red splashes of colour staining it in wirey stripes. In her gloved palm, she could feel it buzzing, vibrating, though not enough to warrant the Exo's alarm. She raised the device to her antenna.

It was quiet, but she swore she could hear...

**Beep. Beep.**

"Oh, you son of a bit-"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... uh... this chapter took quite a bit longer than the rest. Believe me when I say that I went through a LOT of re-writes before I ended up with a result I was happy with. Coupled with some good old Writer's Block and Warmind... yeah.
> 
> Speaking of Warmind, it seems as though I was correct in my headcanon regarding Exo anatomy. That's... good to know.
> 
> Regardless, I hope y'all enjoyed this one. Next chapter will be much more action oriented, so stick around for that.
> 
> If you have any issues or suggestions for the fic, please feel free to leave a comment. I can never get enough feedback for this.
> 
> As always, I own neither Destiny nor Overwatch. They are the property of Bungie and Blizzard, respectively.


End file.
